A post claiming that a train was being pushed in Nigeria has been trending on X. The circulating video was posted on December 16 by an X user, @Ugocugo with the caption “Just imagine 😭 they are pushing train in Nigeria. Supreme Court Cway #verydarkman Aboki Ademola Lookman Northern Nigeria”
The ten seconds footage has attracted over 39,000 views, 19 comments, 93 retweets and quotes, 109 likes and 89 bookmarks as of the time this report was published.
in the comment section, @Ikwutahgea wrote, “Is this not Jos”, while @Michediamond commented, “I thought I have seen it all wow”. NV-A went on to verify the authenticity of the video and verify the location where the incident happened.
VERIFICATION
NV-A used Google reverse image search to verify the claim but nothing related to the picture was seen. However, further keyword search showed some social media handles on Facebook and X shared the same video, here and here.
Also, an online news blog, Green White Green revealed that the incident reportedly occurred when the train slightly veered off its tracks, obstructing a major road and causing traffic congestion before people around the area rallied themselves to manually push the train back into position. Another popular blog, Nairaland Forum posted the video on its forum on December 16 with the caption: “Video Of Nigerians Pushing A Train.”
To verify the location reported by the blog, the fact-checker contacted the Public Relations Officer(PRO) of Jos Train Station, Adamu Abdullahi, who confirmed that the incident happened in Jos. He was quoted saying, “there is a train station around the area where the video was captured. The train derailed and 2 coaches that were blocking the road were detached and there were the ones being pushed off to avoid traffic on the road.”
Abdullahi confirmed that the area where this incident happened is Old Airport Road in Jos, the Plateau state capital.
The fact-checker went ahead to use Google map street view to navigate Old Airport Road in Jos, and found some similarities like the streetlights, advert billboards hung on the street lights and also a rail track crossing the old airport road just after NASCO Foods. Though the road has been rehabilitated with the painting of the road median strip and installation of new street lights but the Google street view is similar to what was captured in the circulating video.
CONCLUSION
The claim that Nigerians had to push a train off the road is TRUE as it happened in Jos, Nigeria, and the incident has been verified by the PRO, Jos Train Station, Adamu Abdullahi.
