By Pascal Ibe

Claim

An X user, @afonjaSlayer, posted a video and claimed that a slave house has been discovered in Nigeria’s Southwest, where they’re selling thousands of Yorubas, both boys and girls.

Verdict

This claim is MISLEADING. Findings by FACTWATCH indicated that the video is over five years old. Reports stated that the place was an illegal rehabilitation center at a mosque located in Ibadan.

Full Text

On Nigeria’s space on X, tribalism has continued to be the order of the day. It’s now like a content creation where tribal bigots from Igbo and Yoruba ethnic groups, rain abuses on each other’s tribe. They posted heinous crimes and atrocities committed by the other tribes to malign themselves.

By doing this, these bigots spread misleading information to the public. They share old and outdated videos, photos, AI-generated content, as well as false stories that are not true.

On 26 October 2024, an X user, @afonjaSlayer, shared a video of unhealthy persons in an unkept place and claimed that a slavé house had been discovered in Nigeria’s Southwest, where they’re selling thousands of Yorubas, both boys and girls.

@afonjaSlayer wrote, “Breaking news: A slavé house has been discovered in Ibadan where they’re selling thousands of Yorubas both boys and girls. They’re being sold to organ harvesters and ritualists. Terrible things are happening in Yoruba land that the media will not show you.

The post generated over 246k views, more than 200 reposts and 2500 likes as of Monday afternoon.

Many people who commented on the post, believed that it happened recently and that the story was true.

See people’s comments here, here, here.

Verification

First, this Fact Checker subjected keyframes from the video to a Google image reverse search and discovered that it was a video when the police raided the place on 5th November 2019.

A YouTube channel, Impact Television confirmed that this happened in 2019.

According to the news report, personnel of the Oyo State Police Command stormed an illegal detention center at a mosque in the Ojoo area of Ibadan and rescued 259 persons being held hostage there.

The victims were made up of 191 males, 34 females, 11 children, and 23 sick persons.

It was gathered that the victims had been in chains for between two and 10 years

The police arrested nine suspects during the raid, including the owner of the center

Findings showed that many such centers had been in existence in the city for several years, with clerics using them as corrective homes for recalcitrant persons.

The state Commissioner of Police, Shina Olukolu(then), who led the police team to the center, said a 17-year-old escapee from a holding facility in another part of Ibadan hinted at the command about the existence of the center.

The commissioner stated that the escapee mentioned the Oloore mosque in Ojoo as another facility used for holding the victims against their will.

According to him, on arrival at the mosque, the victims recounted their harrowing experience, stating that some of them had been held hostage for up to 10 years.

Olukolu said, “The young man said the victims were being maltreated and were poorly fed; being treated like slaves and engaged in forced labor; and oftentimes, their deaths were not reported to anybody.

“Based on that information, the police decided to check out the center. By the time we got to Owode, Apata, the facility had been evacuated. But from the surroundings, we knew that there were people in that place earlier than the time we arrived.

“However, the young man informed the police that there was another detention facility and that is where we are now at Oloore, Ojoo area of Ibadan.

“When the police got here, we discovered that young men and women were being kept in captivity in a dungeon-like situation. Man’s inhumanity to man is being manifested in this environment. We are not happy about the situation.

“So, we got across to the state government and the state government officials are around. They are here with a view to ensuring that some of these young people, who are kept against their will, are liberated and allowed to be in a position where they can talk and take care of themselves.

“This area will be secured and the police will be able to do further investigation.

Anyone who is found culpable will definitely be arrested, investigated, and prosecuted diligently to serve as a warning to others who may want to operate such houses that serve as illegal detention centers.”

Check this similar story here and here.

Conclusion

A raid by police on an illegal rehabilitation center in Ibadan in 2019 was recirculated by an X user who claimed it was a recent incident.