Fact Check - Does This Video Show Killings by Fulani Terrorists in Nigeria
By Nyakerario Omari
This tweet by the leader of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, made claims on November 17, 2020, that the Nigerian government, through Fulani terrorists, had killed children all over Biafraland.
Background
A couple of bandit attacks have been experienced in Nigeria in recent years and are marked by mass abductions.
Traditionally, Fulani herdsmen are semi-nomadic cattle herders and are often accused of crossing boundaries. As there have been attacks by Boko Haram in the North East of Nigeria, the North West part has been experiencing unrest caused by the bandit groups consisting of Fulanis and Hausas. There has been a surge in mass abductions, the most recent one being the abduction of 317 girls from Jangebe, Zamfara state, in a midnight raid. These students were later released on March 2, 2021, with no incident or ransom paid to the abductors.
Speaking to Aljazeera, geopolitical and security analyst Ovigwe Eguegu says that these bandits, driven by financial motives, target schools because they are an easy target.
Verification
When we broke the video in the tweet into keyframes, there wasn’t much in the way of results that Piga Firmbi found.
A reply to these claims shows a screenshot of an article by The Guardian, about an accident that took place in Enugu state involving a school bus and a trailer. We used the keywords: ‘Enugu bus accident’ to establish the basis of this video. Results from this YouTube post show the same video. It was posted on October 28, 2020, and states that this happened in Nkwo junction, Agwu town, in Enugu state.
Global Pint published an article on October 29, 2020, with photos from the accident in Enugu state. Photos of these bodies can be identified both in this article and the same video in question. (See screengrab below).
The students involved in this accident are said to be from Presentation Nursery and Primary School, owned by the Catholic Diocese of Agwu. The bus had 64 occupants, 61 students, 2 teachers and a driver.
Enugu sector commander, Mr Ogbonna Kalu blamed this accident on overspeeding by the driver of the trailer. He confirmed 21 deaths from this accident.
Verdict
This tweet claiming to show a video of killings executed by Fulani terrorists is MISLEADING.
This story was produced by Africa Uncensored in partnership with Code for Africa with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie.
