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As February took a bow, DUBAWA published numerous reports, as part of its effort in tracking misinformation and disinformation across various social media platforms.
Here are some of the top claims we looked into this week.
- Video showing Nigerians deported from the United States
Upon assuming office as the 47th president of the United States (US), Donald Trump made several groundbreaking decisions, including the deportation order.
Given this deportation order, a social media user uploaded a video clip claiming it shows a recent raid of Nigerians living in the US. The scenario differences in the video prompted DUBAWA’s investigation.
Subjecting the video to a Google Reverse Image Search, DUBAWA noticed that the claimant’s video was scenes from four videos joined together to push a narrative. Aside from that, all the videos have been online before President Trump’s inauguration.
Read more here.
- Video of President Trump promising to liberate Biafra
For decades, the persistent call for an independent country by the Southeast region has continued to grow. This led to the formation of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) by Nnamdi Kanu, who is currently under detention over charges of national unrest and other alleged crimes.
As misinformation continues to circle around President Trump since his inauguration, a perceived supporter of the secessionist group Olivercan Ezeigwe, on Feb. 11, 2025, via Facebook shared a video of President Trump raising support for the Biafra movement.
However, a video analysis showed that the video was generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) to spread the false narrative. The original version of the clip was longer and more detailed than the claimant’s video.
We found that the video was made in 2021, during a heat-up to the US election later won by Joe Biden. In the video, Trump was describing acts of violence and vandalism as going against everything his movement stood for, not drumming support for Biafra as alleged.
Read more here.
- Innocent Idibia has reconciled with his wife Annie Idibia
Amidst the controversy surrounding popular musician Innocent Idibia, popularly known as 2baba’s marital issues, a Facebook post on Feb. 1, 2025, claimed that 2baba had reconciled with his wife, Annie Idibia, after Senator Ned Nwoko intervened.
The post, which was accompanied by a picture of the couple and Mr Nwoko and his wife Regina Daniel, was coming weeks after 2baba publicly revealed his divorce from his wife via a post on his social media handle.
DUBAWA’s analysis of the image revealed that it had been online for four months long before these issues came to light.
Read more about our findings here.
- Does bottled water contain microplastic?
In a video clip, an Instagram user claims that bottled water contains microplastics because the bottles shed microplastics into the water. Investigating the claim, DUBAWA found various research works and reports that validated the assertion of the Instagram claim.
Research states that bottled water contains different degrees of microplastics and nanoplastics. For more details, read here.
