By Juliet Buna
An image of a man, claimed to be a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), with severe wounds on his back has been circulating on social media. The caption accompanying the image claims he was brutally attacked in Kaura Namoda, Zamfara State.
The circulating image
The image which has been forwarded many times on WhatsApp with a caption attached to it. The caption reads in part, “Please, read and share widely. We should all call for justice or else scrap the NYSC scheme. Who would have his son or daughter so battered? WHO WILL HEAR AND NOT CRY? The entire corps members serving in Kaura Namoda, Zamfara State, are bleeding out purple blood.
“Michael- serving in Nasara Standard Academy, perceived as the shining light in a tottering secondary education system in Kaura Namoda- was today brutalised, manhandled and reduced to nothingness by a brainless team comprising of the richest man in Kaura Namoda and his equally wanton boys. What was his crime?.”
VERIFICATION
NV-A did a Google search using keywords related to NYSC and a potential attack in Kaura Namoda, Zamfara State. The results shown revealed that the news had been circulating online for an extended period. To further verify the authenticity of the image, NV-A conducted a Google reverse image search on the image and found that the image has been in circulation since 2014, predating the alleged incident.
The researcher traced the origins of the claim back to a 2017 incident in which NYSC member Esi Uwakwe was assaulted by a policeman in Kaura Namoda, Zamfara state. But, the photo being shared online is not associated with this incident and the victim was safely relocated to Anambra State. This is the only reported incident of a corp member being attacked or brutalised in Kaura Namoda that was found online.
NV-A’s findings also revealed that Africa Check had previously fact-checked the claim in August 2019, findings from their checks found that the lacerated back in circulation was a special effect created by Nigerian makeup artist, Hakeem Onilogbo, further debunking the false claim.
During our search, we discovered that a journalist from Kaura Namoda, Zamfara state, and Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Zone A (Northwest), Abdulrazak Bello Kaura has also dismissed the incident and image as entirely fabricated, further reinforcing the findings that the story is false.
CONCLUSION
The claim that a corp member was brutalised in Kaura Namoda, Zamfara state, is FALSE, and the circulating photo shared with the claim is unrelated to the incident.
