|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Claim: Three images from Instablog9ja’s old post depict the perpetrators of a ritual killing.
Verdict: Misleading! Our findings traced the images to three separate occurrences across Lagos, Uganda, and Ghana, suggesting that the narrative used to promote the assertion was fabricated for social media sensation.
Full Text
Three collaged images have been trending on social media, particularly on Facebook. Instablog9ja, a popular Nigerian blog, initially posted these images. The images depict a young man, a woman described as his mother, and a police van carrying a wrapped corpse. The duo was alleged to have conspired to rape, poison and eventually kill the man’s younger sister for ritual purposes.
“He was caught during a stop-and-search operation carried out along Itamaga, Ikorodu Road in the state. During interrogation, he reportedly confessed to the Police that his mother, based on the native doctor’s instruction, asked him to k#ll his younger sister so that he could become rich,” Instablog9ja claimed.
Instablog9ja made this post on May 8, 2023, and Yabeleft Online republished the same narrative the next day. The popularity of these blogs made the claim go viral in the referred year.
However, this claim began to recirculate in Oct 2024, as seen here, here, and here, with several users calling to prosecute the alleged suspects.
DUBAWA decided to verify this verification due to the claim’s potential for misinformation.
Verification
Image 1
DUBAWA’s reverse image search traced this young man’s image to an April 26, 2019, event. On that day, Bashiru Ahmed, a 21-year-old, was allegedly involved in a knife stabbing that led to the death of Oshin Aderibigbe, the Spokesperson of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS). Mr Aderibigbe, a recent graduate of the Federal College of Fisheries and Marine Technology, Lagos, was attacked in the Okoko area of Lagos State. Punch, Premium Times, and Daily Post reported this incident.
Image 2
Again, DUBAWA found that the image of this woman did not originate from Nigeria but from a Ugandan murder case reported on Feb. 20, 2013. The woman, Rosemary Kamuli, 30, was arrested for killing her co-wife, Anna Basemera, in Kijenga village, Karago Town Council, Kabarole District, Uganda.
According to the Uganda Radio Network (URN), Ms Kamuli allegedly murdered Basemera after she visited their marital home to perform traditional rituals following the birth of twins with their shared husband.
Image 3
Like the previous images, DUBAWA found that the third image is connected to a 2022 serial killing that took place in Wa town, Ghana. The wrapped corpse in the police truck was reportedly exhumed from a shallow grave in Bahamu, a suburb of Wa, on Sept. 19, 2022. According to Otec 102.9 FM, 18 people were arrested in connection with the incident, although eight were later released on bail.
Conclusion
Our findings show none of these images described a rape, poisoning or ritual killing of anyone in Lagos, Nigeria. These images going viral are old and from an Instablog9ja’s 2023 post, which we found was fabricated to mislead the public.
