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No! Sunday Igboho did not go to Beninise Court with an Entourage

Claim: A written text on a viral WhatsApp video claims that a large entourage followed Sunday Igboho to court in Benin Republic.

No! Sunday Igboho did not go to Beninise Court with an Entourage

The text on the video is misleading. The video was recorded in June, 2021 when Sunday Igboho did a Yoruba Nation Rally in Ekiti State, South West Nigeria.

Full Text

Nigerians have increasingly grown curious about the state of affairs of Mr. Sunday Adeniyi Adeyemo (popularly known as Sunday Igboho) since his arrest by Beninise authorities on July 20, 2021. 

Sunday Igboho, a separatist and tribal activist has been calling for the creation of an independent nation (Oduduwa Republic) for the Yoruba ethnic group which dominates Nigeria’s South West region. Sunday Igboho is a dual-citizen of Nigeria and Germany

The Nigerian government regards Igboho as a dissident and ordered his arrest but he escaped when his house was raided on Thursday, July 1, 2021. Sunday Igboho had since been on the run, with various disinformation about his arrest until he was apprehended by authorities in Benin Republic, Nigeria’s West African neighbour at the country’s Cardinal Bernadin International Airport while trying to escape to Germany.

The mainstream and social media in Nigeria have been bombarded with opinions on what should happen to Igboho, how he should be treated in prison and what positions they think Beninise and German authorities, as well as Yoruba leaders should take on his repatriation, freedom as well as his agitations. 

A 29-second video went viral on WhatsApp in Nigeria, showing a video of Igboho in an entourage with a large crowd of people celebrating him. The video has a text on it which reads “D LION OF AFRICA SUNDAY IGBOHO IS ON HIS WAY TO COURT IN COTONU”.

No! Sunday Igboho did not go to Beninise Court with an Entourage
Screenshot of the viral video

Verification

While Sunday Igboho has indeed been to court in Benin Republic, there has been no credible report of an entourage accompanying him to court. 

Dubawa did a keyword search and found two links with longer versions of the videos but without the text. The first link took us to a 9 minutes 58 seconds video on FaceTV Africa’s YouTube page which contains background comments from a Yoruba speaking crowd praising Igboho. The video which was posted on June 6, 2021 had the following description: “SEE THE MASSIVE CROWD THAT WELCOME CHIEF SUNDAY IGBOHO TO ODUDUWA NATION MEGA RALLY IN EKITI STATE”. The video had been watched 1,303 times.

No! Sunday Igboho did not go to Beninise Court with an Entourage
Screenshot of the video on FaceTV Africa’s YouTube page

The second link reveals a 10 minutes 2 seconds video on the YouTube page of Gbefila TV which contains the same video posted on FaceTV Africa with the description “SEE THE CROWD THAT WELCOME CHIEF SUNDAY IGBOHO IN EKITI STATE MEGA RALLY”. The video has been watched 630 times.

No! Sunday Igboho did not go to Beninise Court with an Entourage

Screenshot of the video on Gbefila TV’s YouTube page

Dubawa also got a yahoo link to several videos of the different rallies he had held across South West Nigeria before his arrest, but none since he had been arrested in Benin Republic.

Conclusion

The text on the short video claiming that Sunday Igboho went to court in Cotonou with an entourage is misleading. The video was from a June, 2021 rally in Ekiti State, Nigeria.

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