Old video of Sokoto displacement recirculated with false Fulani terrorist narrative

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Maryam Umar

Claim: An X user shared a video of people fleeing because a Fulani terrorist group ordered the Indigenous Hausa tribes in Sokoto to leave or be killed.

Verdict: Misleading. DUBAWA’s investigation shows the video dates back to May 2025 and depicts communities fleeing attacks by bandits loyal to the criminal kingpin Bello Turji. 

Full Text

On June 13, 2026, an X user, Drake (@DrakeOfficial06), shared a video showing a large crowd of women and children carrying belongings on their heads as they fled on foot along a dusty road. 

Drake claimed that these are members of a Sokoto community fleeing because a terrorist group asked the indigenous Hausa tribes to leave. 

The post’s caption reads, “In the Northern Part of Nigeria, Fulani Terrorist groups have told Indigenous Hausa tribes in Sokoto to leave Sokoto or be sl@ughtered. See them leaving their communities for the Fulani Terrorists.”

The post, archived here, as of June 13, had garnered 124,000 views, 215 comments, 1,400 reposts, and 2,100 likes. 

The post stirred mixed reactions along ethnic and religious lines, while others expressed concern about government failure.

“You mean that Hausa is fleeing Sokoto for Fulani? To have Sokoto purely possessed by Fulani and her Sultan (because the Sultan is Fulani)?” @MaguuThegreat questioned, 

@Real White Aghama (@AghamaW) declared that “Islamic Fulani terrorists along with their enablers and financiers… are the biggest existential threats and plagues troubling the collective peace, progress and prosperity of Nigeria and Nigerians today,” a comment that attracted 732 impressions. 

@Onlineband_it went further, writing, “We should generalise all Fulani as terrorists.” 

Linking this to the government failure, @Obaskki wrote, “How on earth do you leave your home because of terrorist invasion? This govt has failed woefully.” 

@SleemMedia asked, “The Government isn’t doing anything? Who did we offend like this?” 

Given the post’s high reach and its potential to inflame ethnic tensions across Nigeria, DUBAWA decided to verify both the footage and the claim attached to it.

Verification

We conducted reverse image and keyword searches across multiple video frames to determine the video’s earliest known origin. 

The earliest instance we identified was on May 4, 2025, when the Instagram account @northern_trending_ shared the same video with a caption in Hausa-language describing the video as the displacement caused by threats from Bello Turji’s lieutenant, known as Kallamu, with affected residents fleeing to Gatawa town in Sabon Birni Local Government Area (LGA). 

The translated caption reads, “Residents of more than twenty villages are currently fleeing and abandoning their homes following threats of attack issued by a notorious bandit and a senior associate of Bello Turji, known as Kallamu. The displaced villagers have arrived in Gatawa town seeking refuge.”

Two days later, on May 6, 2025, a Facebook account “Hausawa” shared the same footage, this time stripped of its specific identifying context. The caption read, “This is the current situation in Sokoto, the seat of the Caliphate and home state of the Sultan.” 

This user mentioned no specific location, date, perpetrator, or cause.

These posts confirm that the same video had been circulating since May, 2025, and was attributed to Turji’s bandits. 

The displacement shown in the video corresponds to a documented security crisis reported by Nigerian media outlets in early May 2025. Punch Newspaper reported on May 5, 2025, that a fresh wave of bandit attacks orchestrated by loyalists of notorious bandit kingpin Bello Turji had forced residents of over 20 villages in Sokoto State to flee their homes. The report noted that displaced villagers were seeking refuge in the Sabon Birni LGA. 

A HumAngle investigation into the wider displacement crisis in Sabon Birni also confirmed that by May 2025, attacks by Bello Turji had driven thousands from the Gatawa District. 

Authorities on the ground responded at the time, and their statements did not refer to any ethnic group. The Punch report revealed that the Sokoto State Police Command confirmed the deployment of officers to the troubled axis. 

We conducted keyword searches to determine whether any official statement had been issued by the Sokoto State Government, the Nigerian Police, the Nigerian Army, or any other security agency regarding the recent threat shared by the claimant, but found none. 

Conclusion

While the video shared by @DrakeOfficial06 is genuine, it is not recent or related to a threat to Hausa Indigenes in Sokoto. The video is from a 2025 displacement event in Sokoto State.

This fellowship is implemented by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) with support from the European Union.