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Claim: An X user shared a video of some Nigerians begging for rice in Oyo State.
Verdict: Misleading. The clip shared by the X user was recorded in 2023, when a truckful of rice was distributed to the elderly in Lagos State.
Full Text
Periodically in the year, the Federal Government (FG) donates palliatives to citizens to ease the effects of economic hardship in the country.
Recently, an X user, @omoluabi1sq (archived here), shared a video of people rowdily begging for 1kg bags of rice as a humanitarian agency distributed palliatives to reduce hunger in Ibadan, Oyo State.
“Nigerians are seen in this viral video jostling for 1kg of rice as a humanitarian agency began sharing rice as a palliative to reduce hunger in one of Ibadan’s Communities, Oyo State,” the X user wrote.
As of Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, the post has garnered 114,100 views, 670 comments, 1,500 retweets, 1,800 likes, and 423 bookmarks.
Other X users blamed the FG for rendering people economically unable to meet basic needs for themselves and their families.
“Very sad. It shall not be well with APC!” Ocaleb88 declared.
“What the APC has done to this country, I’m not sure it can ever be repaired,” chii_nice opined.
“These people cannot even afford gas…2027 election in motion…” HenryDivine commented.
Following a query submitted via DUBAWA’s chatbot and due to misconceptions people may have about the video clip, we decided to verify its original context.
Verification
DUBAWA used keyframes from the video to conduct a Google Reverse Image Search. This search linked us with a news article published by MyNigeria on Aug. 20, 2023.
The news article reported that elderly people in Lagos State hustled for foodstuffs thrown at them. The news outlet reported that the video, initially shared on social media, showed a truck loaded with rice being distributed to elderly individuals who had come in large numbers.
The development occurred after the approval of a N5 billion grant to each state of the federation to purchase grains and five trucks of rice for distribution to the public to mitigate the effects of economic hardship in the country.
DUBAWA noticed that the Vanguard newspaper reported the N5 billion subsidy palliative grant on Aug. 17, 2023.
Further inquiries led us to similar videos shared on Facebook (here and here). The videos were shared in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Conclusion
DUBAWA’s findings indicate that the video clip shared by the claimant, depicting people jostling for rice, dates to 2023. The claim is, therefore, misleading.
