By Pascal Ibe
Introduction
Opposition parties in Nigeria and their supporters are looking to unseat President Bola Tinubu, who is seeking re-election in the 2027 presidential election.
Supporters of Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidates of the Nigeria Democratic Congress and the African Democratic Congress, have continued to accuse the president of failing to tackle and address the major problems faced by Nigerians in the last three years of his administration.
They believe that the majority of Nigerians have rejected Tinubu’s re-election bid and would vote him out in next year’s election.
Claim
Many pages and accounts across the Nigerian social media space have published a video clip which claims to show “a recent Tinubu Must Go protest”
On the X platform, a user, @spoiltkid (DJ SpoltKid), posted (archived here) the video clip on 19 September and wrote, “Ongoing TINUBU MUST GO! protest in Nyanya, Abuja.
“The certificate forger and fake Muslim man who deceived northerners would be waybilled back to Oduduwa region next year in total rejection.”
With over 18,000 views on the post, people believe that it is true that the protest occurred recently.
Another X user, @oyometer, posted the same video with a caption that reads, “APC don’t know what is coming.
This won’t be an issue of religion or tribe.
Nigerians will surely speak with one voice Tinubu Must Go”
FACTWATCH Nigeria observed that the clip and the similar claim that it was recent, have spread to other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Verification
When FACTWATCH Nigeria subjected key frames from the video to an image reverse search website, results led us to some Facebook pages that published the clip first in June this year.
See some pages that posted the video here and here.
To confirm that this video is three months old, we searched and found out that news websites reported the protest in June.
According to the TheCable, the protesters in Abuja demanded that the administration of Tinubu should rescue the Oyo schoolchildren and teachers in the den of kidnappers.
The schoolchildren and teachers abducted in May regained their freedom in July.
The protesters were chanting “Tinubu must go, bring back our children ”, while carrying placards with inscriptions calling for the rescue of the abducted schoolchildren and teachers from Oyo and Borno states.
Other news websites reported here and here that the protest happened at that time.
Verdict
The pages on social media intentionally recirculated the June video as an “ongoing Tinubu Must Go protest“, therefore it is MISLEADING
