By Pascal Ibe

Claim

An X user circulated a video showing military men shooting at the houses owned by civilians in a rural community, and alongside the claim, it was an incident.

Verdict

The X user recycled a 4-year-old video as recent to mislead the public. The video first appeared online in November 2021 in Enugu state.

Full Text

In the last four years, gunmen said to be part of the Biafra agitation in the South-east have been terrorising residents of the region.

Several persons, including security agencies and government officials, have been abducted or killed by the attackers.

The outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has been blamed for the frequent attacks in the South-east, but the group has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks.

IPOB is seeking the secession of the South-east and some parts of the South-south from Nigeria.

Places like Orsumoghu Lilu communities in Anambra state and Okiigwe and Mbaitolu Local Government Areas of imo state have been terrorized by these hoodlums.

However, the Nigerian security agents have dislodged and killed many of the Biafran fighters in continuous operations in the areas.

Regarding this, an X account, Akukaria, shared a video showing military men shooting at the houses owned by civilians in a rural community, and alongside the claim, it was an incident.

The X user shared the video and wrote, “See Nigerian military shooting indiscriminately at civilians in Imo state and setting their homes ablaze.

“Tomorrow Yariba Ronus will tell you it’s IPOB.

The post has already garnered more than 300 reposts with over 500 reactions.

Another X account promoting Biafra agitation also published a claim that it was recent.

Verification

First, FACTWATCH Nigeria subjected keyframes from the video to a Google Lens Search and the results showed that the video first surfaced online in November 2021.

A Facebook page and an X account published the video in 2021 here and here.

During this period, the Nigerian army denied being responsible for the incident.

In a statement in 2021, the 82 Division of the Nigerian Army, Enugu, denied any incident of shooting and burning of houses in Mgbowo Community, Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State.

The army, which said it only carried out a night raid at a suspected Indigenous People of Biafra/Eastern Security Network (IPOB/ESN) hideout located in the community, disclosed that two ring leaders of IPOB/ ESN were arrested.

But in a report by the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) in 2021, the publication revealed that a Hausa-speaking source translated the statements made by the soldiers in the video, confirming that the language was indeed Hausa – one of the three major languages spoken in Nigeria – as claimed on social media.

The source told FIJ that the words of one of the soldiers, “Ku sa wuta wuta“, translate as “Put fire; put fire” in English.

He also confirmed that “Ku fito mana“, said by the soldiers, translates as “Come out”, while “kun cu durin uwar ku” and “Buran ubansu” are derogatory and unprintable curse words.

The soldiers also said, “Who de check am?” This is a popular slang in Pidgin English, widely used in Nigeria.

The uniforms of the soldiers in the videos were also checked against the military camouflage patterns used in Nigeria. Some officers in the videos donned a variant of the black, brown, and khaki “blotch” shapes on a vivid forest green background, a design introduced in Nigeria between 2012 and 2013

Although the uniform varies slightly in colour from the one commonly worn by Nigerian soldiers, a military source confirmed to FIJ that it is indeed used by the Nigerian military.

FIJ reached out to residents of Isi-Ngwu Mgbowo for confirmation. Pleading anonymity, one of them said soldiers were in the area shooting sporadically during the day, and that he was not aware of any arrests of members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its combat arm, the Eastern Security Network (ESN).

“We heard gunshots; nobody was in the houses they were shooting, but the gunshots were loud. It happened during the day on Monday,” he said.

According to the sources, occupants of the houses had fled into the bush when the soldiers commenced their shooting.

Conclusion

Findings have shown that the video was from 2021 in Enugu state and not recent.