A former Nigerian lawmaker and spokesperson of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council, Dino Melaye, has shared a photo alongside a claim that suggests that the life of the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, is in danger.
Yakubu tweeted the screenshot photo, which had the image of the INEC chairman atop a news headline, which reads:
Breaking: My life is at risk, INEC chairman cries out.
In his tweet, Melaye captioned the photo thus, ‘Please go to court’.
The tweet, which was made on Monday, March 6, 2023 has garnered 1.2 million views, over 2,800 retweets and 18,200 likes by Thursday, March 9, 2023.
Melaye has about 3.4 million followers on Twitter.
Another online user, Anchor Network, which has over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, also posted an audio-visual report of the same claim.
The eight-minute long video report, which was posted on March 5, had had over 6,900 views by Thursday, March 9.
This claim is coming days after Yakubu oversaw the conduct of Nigeria’s 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections.
The election results are currently being challenged in court by the two main opposition presidential candidates, Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP.
THE CLAIM
INEC Chairman cries out that his life is at risk.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by THE ICIR show that the claim is FALSE.
The screenshot photo which Melaye tweeted did not bear the name of any news blog or website. Apart from the image and headline, no detailed report was seen on it.
When the headline was subjected to a search using Google lens and Google reverse image tools, it displayed a report published four years ago by thebiafrastar.com, which content is no longer accessible on the internet.
Further search shows that no credible media platform reported the claim attributed to the INEC chairman.
When contacted, Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press Secretary/Media Adviser to the INEC chairman told the FactCheckHub: “It’s fake. At no time did the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, speak about his life being at risk. This is the work of mischief makers. Prof. Yakubu’s life is not at risk. He is fine.”
THE VERDICT
The claim that the INEC Chairman cried out that his life was at risk is FALSE, and Yakubu’s spokesperson had debunked it.
Fatimah Quadri is a Journalist and a Fact-checker at The ICIR. She has written news articles, fact-checks, explainers, and media literacy in an effort to combat information disorder.
She can be reached at sunmibola_q on X or fquadri@icirnigeria.org