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Claim: A Facebook blogger shared 12 images showcasing recent improper refuse disposal in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State.
Verdict: The claim is misleading as images were separately sourced from old news articles.
Full Text
From urban streets to rural markets, indiscriminate waste disposal is a popular practice across numerous locations in Nigeria.
On Jan. 15, 2024, The-Cyberprof Int’l, a Facebook blogger, shared 12 photographs depicting the indiscriminate disposal of refuse, allegedly a menace in Ibadan. The photos shared displayed waste thrown along busy roads at different places within the city. To contextualise his claim, he wrote, tagging the state governor: “Welcome to Ibadan city, Oyo State under Governor Seyi Makinde’s government.”
The action of this claimant, however, received condemnation from other users. While a few questioned the authenticity of the images shared, other supporters of the governor scolded him for tagging “Seyi Makinde.” For instance, Ezekiel Oloko saw the tagging of the state governor on such matters as unnecessary. He further called on residents to take responsibility for a clean environment.
“You don’t need to tag the governor. He’s not the one dumping the refuse there. We need to call ourselves into order. We can use common sense to make the community better, clean, and healthy for everyone. This man is trying all best,” he said.
Speaking in the same direction as Mr Oloko, another user, Eddy Toluwanimi, defended the state governor, saying, “Shey na Seyi Makinde that is putting (those) stuff by the roadside? Pls, let everyone be responsible for the action.”
On Jan. 7th, The-Cyberprof Int’l used five images to depict the poor condition of Uga Boys Secondary School in Anambra State. However, upon verification, DUBAWA realised they were old, obtained from different sources, and deployed to drive a false narrative.
With the possibility of being a repeated scenario, we conducted this fact check to establish the truth behind the images shared.
Verification
Especially in areas like Makola-Dugbe, DUBAWA found indiscriminate waste disposal a recurring practice in “the city of brown roofs”, as Ibadan is fondly called. However, that did not validate the pictures shared by The-Cyberprof Int’l.
We conducted a reverse image search on each photograph, and the findings indicated that they were sourced from numerous dated news articles that highlighted incidents of unlawful waste disposal in Ibadan. Some pictures originated from a singular report on three occasions, while others were obtained independently. Moreso, Mr Makinde was elected into the office of the Governor of Oyo State in March 2019, and some of the photographs had been on the internet as far back as 2017, before he got elected.
We have organised the images in the following order for easy reference:
Photos 1, 2 & 3
We associated the first three photographs with a Nigerian Tribune publication dated Jan. 6, 2017, under the headline: “In Ibadan, it’s refuse everywhere.” These images were taken at Oja-oba, Liberty Junction, and Ososami, offering a vivid depiction of the situation prevailing at that time.
Photos 4, 5 & 6
The next set of images was discovered in an article from The News Nigeria dated Feb. 14, 2017, titled “Ibadan: Tale of a Dirty City.” Similar to the preceding pictures, these images illustrated how this practice was carried out in the Olodo-Iwo axis of the city.
Photos 7 & 8
In contrast to the rest, photos seven and eight presented a unique perspective as we found them in a Dec. 7, 2023 report of The Guardian. The accompanying caption reads: “Refuse heaps at Iwo Road and Ojo along Ibadan-Oyo Expressway.”
Photo 9
The earliest version of photo nine was discovered on the Business Traffic website. This image, depicting a waste collection point in Ibadan, served as the featured image for their report covering the Oyo state government’s initiatives in waste evacuation. It is dated Oct. 27, 2021.
Photo 10
On Oct. 29, 2019, The Nation newspaper released an article titled: “Ibadan…Coping with the siege of garbage (2).” Photo 10 was featured among the images illustrating the narrative.
Photo 11
TVC News featured Image 11 on Nov. 27, 2019, when Governor Makinde declared a state of emergency on waste management in Oyo state. With an assurance that it had found a permanent solution to the menace, Mr Makinde made the declaration after he led his cabinet to “clear waste for a whole night in Ibadan.”
Photo 12
Once more, on April 26, 2019, The Guardian released a story detailing the unclean state of the Ibadan Metropolis. Image 12, photographed by Najeem Raheem, was featured in the report.
Conclusion
The images used in this claim all had a connection to Ibadan. However, they were mostly extracted from outdated news articles. The claim is misleading.
