By Pascal Ibe
Introduction
Fresh violence and retaliatory attacks between Muslim Fulani herders and Christian farming communities have spiked across central Plateau State, Nigeria, driven by disputes over land, water, crop destruction, and cattle rustling.
Riyom Local Government Area of Plateau State and other areas have become conflict zones between farmers and herders in Plateau in recent times.
Data quoted by the Punch Online in March revealed that over 11,000 to 12,000 people have been killed in Plateau State over the past two decades, with over 420 communities attacked and thousands displaced.
The violence, primarily between farmers and herders, has led to widespread destruction and loss of livelihoods
The federal and state governments have, at different times, made repeated efforts to resolve the crisis but to no avail.
Claim
A user on the X platform, has posted an image which claims to show the moment a photo from drone’s surveillance showed a herdsman wielding an AK-74 rifle to graze in the Government Area of Plateau State.
The X user, @Kezmag_ (Chikezie) posted (archived here) the image with a circled dot to show the gun being wielded by the herder. He then wrote, “Just in: drone surveillance captured a Fulani Herder holding an AK-47 rifle as he grazes in Riyom LGA of Plateau State.”
With over 4,000 views the post has attracted comments suggesting that users on X believe the image was real.
For instance, @Uchenna35259 asked, “What business does a cattle rearer have with an AK-47 gun, if not that they are on a mission?”
@ugoezeani16, another X user who commented on the post said, “Someone they can ambush and disarm if the community are serious”
Verification
First, FACTWATCH Nigeria subjected the image to an Image Reverse Search website, but the results could not bring out any exact matching image or another source or any page on social media that posted the image recently.
Also, no security agencies or media organisations in Nigeria have shared the photo online, to corroborate the claim.
This is a primary signal that the image may not be real.
But to confirm further, we checked the image on three AI image detection websites. The results confirmed the image was purely created by an AI generative site.
DeepAI, SightEngine and ZeroGPT produced the same results.
Verdict
No credible source confirmed that the image was real, and when subjected to AI detection websites, results showed that it was AI-generated.
Therefore, the image used to show the moment a drone captured a herder welding an AK-74 rifle to graze in a Plateau council area is not real, and it is FALSE.
