|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Claim: A Facebook user claims the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revealed the first sample of the N5000 note, which features President Tinubu’s image.
Verdict: False! No report indicates the CBN recently introduced N5000 notes. Moreover, an analysis of the note shows that it was AI-generated.
Full Text
On Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, a blog page, 9Njablog, shared a picture of a new N5000 currency denomination featuring President Bola Tinubu and claimed it was recently unveiled by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Alongside the image of the alleged new currency, the Facebook user wrote, “The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has unveiled the first sample of the N5000 note, which will soon be distributed to banks. The note features a portrait of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
“According to the CBN Governor, this decision honours Tinubu for his commendable contributions during his presidency.” he wrote further.
The post has attracted 10 reactions and 10 comments and has been reposted 10 times as of Monday, Feb. 10, 2025.
Several users on Facebook shared the image with a similar narrative as seen here, here, here, and here.
DUBAWA’s decision to investigate the claim because of the economic and political implications of the claim for Nigeria’s territorial integrity.
Verification
DUBAWA conducted an extensive keyword search to determine whether the CBN has recently unveiled a new currency in Nigeria but found no report to validate the assertion.
Investigating further, DUBAWA checked the CBN’s official website, but there was no report that it launched any new currency.
Furthermore, DUBAWA combed through the CBN’s X and Facebook pages but found no post or image corroborating the claimant’s assertion.
So, we tried to find the origin of the image used by the claimant. We subjected the image to an AI detector tool, Hive Moderation, which showed that it contained 94.9 per cent AI material.
Using another image verification tool, AI detects content.com., which reveals that the image has a 61% AI influence.
We checked his official X handle since President Tinubu is attached to the claim. Still, we found no post or information about him being featured in any naira note or CBN introducing a new currency.
We also did not find any such development reported by credible media outlets.
DUBAWA also contacted the bank via its social media handles (Facebook and X). While we received no response from Facebook, its X page was inaccessible.
Conclusion
Our investigation reveals that the CBN did not introduce a new currency or initiate any discussion about creating a 5,000 naira note. Additionally, the image shared by the claimant is AI-generated.
