A video of Nigerian soldiers torturing a young man, allegedly a terrorist, has surfaced on social media recently. The video was posted by SaharaReporters, a popular online media platform.
The Explainer fact checker used the INVID video verification tool to analyze the video and found out that it was not a recent incident, but rather from 2019. The video was first posted on Nairaland, a popular online blog, on November 4, 2019. It was also uploaded on YouTube on the same day. Human rights activist Deji Adeyanju shared the video on Twitter on November 5, 2019.
The video sparked public outrage and condemnation in 2019, and the Nigerian Army issued a statement on November 4, 2019, in response to the incident. The statement said that the Army strongly condemned the actions of the soldiers in the video and that a detailed investigation had been launched. The statement also said that the actions were unacceptable, unethical, and contrary to the Army’s core values.
The Explainer fact checkers discovered that SaharaReporters did not mention that the video was from 2019, and did not provide any background information or context for the video. This led to confusion and misinformation among the viewers, who thought that the video was a recent occurrence and expressed their anger and disgust at the soldiers’ actions.
The Explainer fact checker verdict is that the video is missing context. The video is not a recent incident, but rather from 2019, and the Nigerian Army addressed the issue and initiated an investigation at that time. SaharaReporters failed to provide any context or date for the video, which contributed to the confusion and misinformation.
