Yunusa Umar
An X user, @Jcokechukwu posted a video showing two individuals wearing Nigerian Police uniform being apprehended and slapped under the veranda of a building. This video has been circulating on X (formerly Twitter).
The viral video was posted on August 29, 2024 with a caption; “With this level of porousness, how are people supposed to react when they see a Nigerian police officer? This is one too many?”.
In the 2:23 seconds footage, a female voice speaking behind the camera said, “With police uniform o. With police uniform, wearing inspector rank. Wahala. Lagos don turn to another thing”. “Hey, him don use am o,” a male voice commented behind the camera. The post has been viewed over 19,300 times, 275 reposts and quotes, about 270 likes and 21 bookmarked as of the time this report was published.
Popular social blog page on X, @YabaLeftOnline posted the same video on August 28, 2024 with a caption; “Armed robbers in Police uniform in Lagos”. The post has had over 32,000 views, 71 reposts and quotes, about 300 likes and 31 bookmarks.
Commenting on the video, @Macobeteddy said: “Wat did they do, a video without a proper offence” while @Daultimatesport replied to the vdeo saying “Nigeria jagajaga”, differently.
Another X user, @ProfGab2 commented under the post that, “Much dam@ge is being done to this country without remorse. This is structurally defective”.
“It’s an old video bro”, another user @JohnATRayan added in the replies. The video was also posted on X as seen here, here and here.
VERIFICATION
A reserve image search conducted on the video’s keyframes extracted from screenshots was uploaded to Google Lens and the results led the fact-checker to a similar footage published by various media outlets dated August 11, 2023.
The search result featured a Facebook page, Premium News Nigeria which posted the video on August 11th, 2023 with the caption: “2 fake police officers were arrested on Thursday at Ikeja by the Dpo and his team.”
Also, a media report published by Tori.ng on the same date stated that a fake police inspector was arrested in Ikeja of Lagos alongside his Junior colleague with an AK-47 gun.
“A fake police inspector has been arrested alongside his junior colleague while on patrol in Ikeja area of Lagos. The duo were apprehended while using the police uniform to extort innocent Nigerians. A pocket knife and locally-modified AK-47 gun were recovered from the suspects”, the Tori.ng reported.
Similarly, The Independent newspaper confirmed the story as published on the same August 11, 2023 with the caption: “Two fake police officers have been arrested while on an illegal patrol in the Ikeja area of Lagos State”
The news platform reported that: “It was gathered that one of the fake officers claims to be a police inspector while the other is a junior colleague. The duo were apprehended while using the police uniform to extort innocent Nigerians. A pocket knife and a locally modified AK-47 gun were recovered from the suspects.”
CONCLUSION
The viral video that shows individuals arrested for wearing fake police uniforms to extort innocent people is TRUE but not recent. The viral clip is an old footage which has been online since August 2023.
