Okediran Adeyemi
On Saturday, June 26, 2021, a user with a pseudo name, Joesand on the microblogging website, Twitter tweeted that, “Finally UN has spoken about Nigeria break-up, holds meeting in Geneva”, with a youtube link attached to his post.
As of the time of fact-checking this claim, no one has engaged this tweet, while youtube has generated 37,820 views and 1,100 likes.
CLAIM
N-VA extracted the claim, “UN Has Spoken About Nigeria’s Break-Up at a Meeting Held in Geneva,” and went on to fact-check and verify its authenticity.
POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE CLAIM
This post was made at the time when the southern and the western region of Nigeria are agitating for secession.
It also coincides with the moment that the Federal Government re-arrested the leader of the Southeast secessionist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, and the State’s Secret Police, DSS, invaded and ransacked the home of Oduduwa republic agitator, Sunday Igboho.
VERIFICATION
The fact-checker checked the daily meeting schedules of the United Nations and discovered that no event or meeting was slated to hold to discuss talks about Nigeria’s situation as claimed in the video. But, further, a click on the YouTube link shared by the Twitter user toon is to the Channel titled, Critics News, and a description of that particular post read: “Finally UN Has Spoken About Nigeria Break-Up, Holds Meeting In Geneva; Big Police Convert Car In…”
It was noted that the video was a news round-up session where one of the top stories was on the UN speaking about Nigeria’s break up as shared by the Deputy Secretary-General (DSG) of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, at a public forum.
The video being referenced to have contained Mohammed’s assertion was uploaded by Channels TV on its YouTube channel on Friday, June 25, 2021. It was news coverage of the DSG while she was delivering a lecture in Abuja. She explained the UN’s stand on Nigeria’s situation while also addressing the use of ceasefire agreements to avoid escalation of armed conflict in Abuja.
According to her, conflicts are more complex in these times with the emergence of non-state actors waging asymmetrical war on sovereign nations.
She clarified the misinformation that the UN does not have any voice on human rights is not true, as there have been spokesman statements, human rights commission statements on human rights in Nigeria.
Mohammed said; “there was a meeting three days ago in Geneva about this country, Nigeria, and a lack of access and human rights. So when you want to say nothing is happening, define what you mean by nothing.”
“With every right comes an obligation, to tell the truth, and the truth in many cases comes in different colours depending on who is telling it and you need to try to be faithful to that because when you say a mistruth it has an impact on people’s lives and I’ll continue to say it that this government is not a saint, and it is very far from it, but there are things that we can do to make it better and that’s the challenge I am throwing to everyone. If you don’t want to build this nation, I don’t know where else you want to go.”
The DSG made it known that there is so much that goes into preventing the crisis for how long before it eventually happens and at the end of the day there is not so much that the UN can do in a country that’s in crisis as it is a sovereign country and you can’t just walk into it and do what you want to do.
CONCLUSION
The claim that the UN spoke about Nigeria’s break-up at a meeting held in Geneva is MISLEADING as the meeting referenced by the DSG was truly held in said location but the agenda was on human rights violation in Nigeria.
