By Pascal Ibe

Many social media influencers, while eulogizing the President of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traore, over his achievements in his country, have gone to the extent of exaggerating or making false and misleading claims that are far from being the truth.

These social media influencers see Burkina Faso’s Traore as a modern hero and the most competent leader in Africa. By doing this, they have fabricated untrue statements and attributed them to the Burkina Faso leader. They also shared and manipulated images and videos to drive home their claims.

One of these mischief makers on X, @AfricanHub on 22nd January, shared a video showing when the Burkina Faso leader visited and interacted with school children.

He published the video and claimed that “Thousands of children in Burkina Faso 🇧🇫 who were displaced by terrorists have returned home under Captain Ibrahim Traore’s leadership.”

The post generated over 26k views and more than 1.2k likes, according to X analytics.

See the archived version of this claim here

 Verification

First, this Fact Checker subjected keyframes from the video to Google Lens, and the results led him to the same video on Facebook that was shared by a news organization in Burkina Faso, known as Burkina 24, on 1st December 2024.

 FACTWATCH Nigeria copied into a Google search the caption on the Facebook video shared by Burkina 24 and the results showed the original report by Burkina 24 on its website.

The report was published in French language but FACTWATCH Nigeria translated it to English, using the Google Language  translator

In the report by Burkina 24 Online, the Head of State, Captain Ibrahim TRAORE, received, on November 29, 2024, in Bobo-Dioulasso, the visit of the students of the Marie-Gabrielle-Choulet school complex, located near the pied-à-terre of the President of Faso. Financial News SubscriptionsBest Online Courses

The students of this school complex, including primary and secondary schools, came to express their admiration and congratulations to the Head of State for the efforts made in the reconquest of the territory and for the development of the country.

Through the voice of their spokesperson, Rahinatou Olivia DABOU, a 5th-grade student, the students reiterated their support for the actions of the President of Faso, undertaken in the field of education and for the well-being of children.

While congratulating his visitors, the Head of State expressed his pride in noting that these students had received the values of good neighborliness instilled by their supervisors.

There’s nowhere in the report that stated these were the thousands of children in Burkina Faso who were displaced by terrorists who returned home under Captain Ibrahim Traore’s leadership. This is an indication that this claim is MISLEADING.

Check a similar report here.

Note that all the reports used as evidence in this Fact Check were translated from French to English Language.

Verdict

Findings by FACTWATCH Nigeria showed that the claim attached to the video is MISLEADING.