An X user, @oyeniran_s, posted a video with the claim that the village of the 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, in Agulu, has been without electricity and clean water for the past five months.
In the one-minute, thirty-three-second footage, a man can be seen and heard speaking in Pidgin English, complaining about the lack of adequate social amenities in the village.
Read Also:
- Did Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu remarry her late husband’s younger brother?
- Viral free flight tickets’ offers from airlines are phishing scams
- False claim circulates about solar eclipse expected on April 8
Part of the audio transcribed from the footage read thus:
“… My people, Peter Obi’s village they do not have light for the past five months, their transformer got burnt, his own village, they do not have light. Peter Obi’s village, even old old women are contributing N5000 to buy a new transformer, in Peter Obi’s village, they do not have light, they do not have water for up to five months. They say that charity begins at home and 1 Timothy 5:8 says that if you cannot do anything good for your relatives, immediate family members, your village people you are an unbeliever and when election time comes, he would come to the same Agulu and be giving them 1000 to vote for him…”
The video also had the caption posted alongside the footage reiterating the statements made from the footage which read:
“For the past five months, Peter Obi’s village in Agulu has been without electricity and clean water. Elderly women, with no source of income, are being compelled to contribute N5,000 each to repair a faulty transformer, as stated by a young man in the video.”
Since the post was made on Wednesday April 10 2024, it has garnered a total of 463,000 views, 345 reposts and 287 likes as at the time of filing this report.
Since, the former governor of Anambra state had donated boreholes to individuals in Kaduna state, he had received several backlash by citizens over the quality of the boreholes donated which had prompted the virality of the video
CLAIM
Video shows a man criticising Peter Obi about the state of social amenities in his village because they have not had power supply in the last 5 months.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub shows that the claim is MISLEADING!
A keyword search on ‘Agulu, Electricity, Transformer, Peter Obi’ provided results of previous appearance of the video on the internet.
A click on one of the links of the search results showed that the video was posted by a Facebook user in October 2022, months before the build up of the 2023 general elections.
Another Facebook user, News in Naija posted the same video on the same day, October, 2 2022.
The video being shared on X is being shared out of context as it is not recent.
THE VERDICT
The claim that a video shows a man criticising Peter Obi about the state of social amenities in his village is misleading; the video has been on the internet since 2022 and it is being shared out of context as it is not recent.
This report is republished from the Factcheckhub.
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