BY: Mustapha Lawal
Claim
A video circulating on WhatsApp claims to show the looting of a warehouse by protesters during the ongoing nationwide #Endbadgovernance protests in Nigeria.
Verdict
False! The video predates the #Endbadgovernance protests and was taken during a separate incident in March 2024.
Full Text
A video showing the looting of a warehouse has been widely shared across several WhatsApp groups with claims that it depicts the recent #Endbadgovernance protests in Nigeria.
These protests began on August 1, 2024, with citizens demonstrating against economic hardships and bad governance.
FactCheckAfrica is working on this claim to set the record straight in a bid to curtail the misinformation around the protest.
Verification
FactCheckAfrica subjected keyframes from the video to verification and found that it had been online long before the current protests. A Google Reverse Image Search revealed that the video was posted on LinkedIn, Nairaland, and YouTube in March 2024. The YouTube video, uploaded by Alert Hub Studios on March 6, 2024, was titled “Hunger in the Land. Another food warehouse looted in Abuja.”
Further research indicated that the government warehouse in the Tarsha 2, Gwagwa area of Abuja was looted by residents on March 3, 2024, due to rising food prices. This incident had no connection to the ongoing protests against bad governance.
Conclusion
The viral video is not related to the #Endbadgovernance protests. It depicts an earlier incident in March 2024 when residents looted a government warehouse in Abuja. Therefore, the claim that the video shows looting during the current protests is false.
