Adeyemi Okediran
On Thursday, January 27, 2022, a Twitter user with the pseudo name ‘Uncle Muhsin’ tweeted three different pictures with the caption, “PMB in Sokoto today!”.
The tweet has generated 29 comments, 33 quotes and retweets, and 52 likes at the time of fact-checking this claim.
POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE CLAIM
Nigeria’s political clime is gearing up for the 2023 general election and the atmosphere is filled with different political propaganda, this has made the researcher take in-depth research on the images attached to the tweet.
The tweet has been also been flagged by other users as sharing fake news as observed in the comment section.
CLAIM
N-VA extracted the claim and images attached to the tweet and went on to verify its authenticity.
VERIFICATION
Was Buhari in Sokoto State?
According to a Premium Times report, President Muhammadu Buhari visited Sokoto State on Thursday, January 27, 2022, to commission a 3 million metric tonne BUA cement factory established in the state.
He also visited the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, in his palace, during the visit as captured in a report by Channels TV.
Are the Pictures Real?
In other to know if the pictures are real images taken during Buhari’s visit to Sokoto State, the researcher used a reverse image search engine to verify each of them.
It was discovered that the first image which has the picture of Buhari coming down from the airplane is not a recent picture, Google reverse image in a news story published on March 15, 2018, headlined: “Buhari Commissions N50bn Sugar Mill in Niger State.”
The other two images were also subjected to reverse image search, and the result shows that the images have been altered as there are numerous similar images online without any poster seen inside them.
CONCLUSION
The claim that President Muhammadu Buhari visited Sokoto on January 27, 2022, is TRUE, but the images attached to the tweet are MISLEADING, as they have been used numerous times on social media.
