Fact-Check: Viral Video of Girls Being Flogged in Maiduguri Is Not from an Islamic School
BY: Mustapha Lawal
Claim:
A viral video circulating on WhatsApp and social media platforms claims to show an Islamic teacher brutally flogging two female students as a form of punishment under Sharia law in Maiduguri, Northern Nigeria.
Verdict:
Misleading! The incident did occur in Maiduguri, but the man in the video is not an Islamic teacher, nor did the act take place in an Islamiyya school. Credible news sources and police reports confirm that the beating was carried out by a private resident whose compound the girls had entered to pluck mangoes.
Full Text:
A disturbing one-minute thirty-second video began circulating via WhatsApp and across Facebook (here and here) and on X, showing a man repeatedly flogging two crying girls while a woman stands nearby.
A screenshot of the claim on X|| FCA
The caption of one viral post on Facebook reads: “This is an Islamiyyah school in Maiduguri, Northern Nigeria (Ile keu). This teacher is using Sharia law here. Parents can’t do anything here.”
As the video spread, users expressed outrage. Some claimed the incident represented a pattern of religious extremism. Others wrongly associated the act with Islamic educational institutions. Comments on the posts included deeply derogatory language toward Islam and Northerners.
FactCheckAfrica decided to verify the authenticity and context of the video due to the sensitive nature of the claims, which risk inciting religious or ethnic tension.
Verification
To establish the video’s origin, FactCheckAfrica subjected key frames from the video to a Google reverse image search. The search led to multiple March 2025 news reports, including those by Daily Trust, Punch, and Vanguard, all of which traced the video to an incident in the Pompomari bypass area of Maiduguri, Borno State.
According to Daily Trust, the two girls, identified as Hauwa and Hajara Goni, had stopped by a mango tree in the compound of Muhammed Shettima while on their way to school. They asked a young boy in the compound to help them pluck mangoes, which he did. However, they were soon confronted by Shettima, who became enraged.
Eyewitness accounts and the victims’ statements revealed that Shettima initially threatened to hack them with a machete, but his wife intervened and provided sticks for him to flog them. One of the girls fainted during the beating, and both were eventually taken home by a sympathetic tricycle rider who knew their family.
The Borno State Police Command confirmed this account in an official update on X (Twitter) dated March 22, 2025. The post was titled: “UPDATE: Couple Arrested Over Viral Child Abuse Video in Maiduguri.”
Both Shettima and his wife were arrested by police, and the case is under investigation for child abuse and assault, not religiously motivated punishment or enforcement of Sharia law.
Conclusion
The video is authentic, but the claim that it shows an Islamic teacher punishing students under Sharia law is false and misleading. The perpetrator is a private citizen, not affiliated with any Islamic school or religious institution. The incident was an act of vigilantism, not religious discipline.
