An image of Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu lying on a hospital bed, has been circulating on social media. This is coming after President Tinubu jetted out of the country to the United Kingdom for a two-week work vacation on October 2, 2024 and individuals who have shared or reacted to the picture are suggesting it shows that the president is out of the country due to ill health.
An X user, @bappha posted the image with Hausa language on his handle on October, 11, 2024 with a caption: Innalillahi wa’inna ilaihirra’jiun. Majiya Mai karfi wai Yana motsi Amma kadan-kadan 😭.” This is translated as: “Indeed, we belong to Allah, and indeed, to Him we return. From reliable sources, there are little emotional signs in his body”, the post reads when translated to English 😭.”
The post has generated 89,400 views, 89 reposts, 26 quotes, 923 likes and 37 bookmarks as of the time this report was published.
Another X user, @Been_Nazeeph posted the same image with a different caption.“What a lifetime opportunity to cement your legacy 🤔”.
The image has also been shared on Youtube here and on Facebook here. Comments under the post ranged from prayers to sceptics about the originality of the picture, @usoufkalli commented saying, “May Allah bless him with good health and long life.”
Another X user, @laskuri comments, “Una do more than this for buahri, the man still alive and stronger than most of you people at that old age,” while @Supo196 replied to the post saying, “A1 editing.”
“Wannan Photoshop ne”, another X user,@Maverickzacks reacted under the post and @Garbah5 asked, “Wetin be this 😭💔😂😂😂.
Amidst public concerns about the health of the president since he assumed office in 2023, the scepticism displayed in the comments reacting to the alleged picture of President Tinubu on a sick bed emphasises the need to fact-check the image.
VERIFICATION
NV-A extracted screenshots of the footage and subjected it to Google Lens. The results led to the photograph of photo-journalist, Summit Smart-Cole in a hospital bed from 2018. This image of Smart-Cole showed similarities to that of the alleged image of Tinubu on a hospital sick bed.
The publisher of Ovation international, a celebrity magazine, Dele Momodu first posted the image of the ailing journalist on X in April 2018.
“There lies one of Nigeria’s greatest photo-journalists SUNMI SMART-COLE in his hospital bed. He was in bad shape when I saw him at the TINUBU COLLOQUIUM. He collapsed several times and Professor Pat Utomi and I held him but he held on to his camera and kept firing.. Get well pls”, his X caption with the accompanying image of Smart-Cole on a sickbed reads.
In the image posted by Momodu, it was observed that a male nurse was by Smart-Cole’s bedside checking his vitals with his hands on the machine and on the patient’s left hand. This is quite similar to the purported image of Tinubu on a sickbed but the nurse’s head appears to have been cropped out of the image. Also, the settings of Smart-Cole’s room with the bedside table items including a bottle of Jergens lotion, a glass of water, an avocado fruit, jar, reading glass, portable recorder and a DStv remote correspond with the items obvious in Tinubu’s alleged sickbed.
However, Smart-Cole’s hospital room is in an African country which was given away by the DStv remote which is peculiar to the broadcast satellite service operating in Africa. Meanwhile, further searches by NV-A shows that many Nigerian news websites including Daily Trust, Punch, Business Day and Leadership reported that Tinubu has since departed the UK and is currently in France.
“In a post on X on Friday, Masari, the senior special assistant on political matters to the president, said he visited Tinubu at his private residence in the UK. The aide said he and the president headed for Paris, France, after “productive discussions”, The Cable reported.
