A viral video showing hundreds of Nigerians ransacking the palace of the Emir of Ilorin over the rising cost of food items is misleading, checks by THE WHISTLER have shown....CONTINUE READING
In the 26 seconds clip, the protesters can be heard chanting in Yoruba language that “the city is hungry!”.
The clip captioned “Hunger: Emir Of Ilorin Reportedly Runs Out Of His Palace As Nigerians Occupy It Seeking For Food.
To verify the authenticity of the video, THE WHISTLER observed some of the architectural details in the video including a white wall with Arabic inscriptions and a mosque with four golden minarets (a tall tower attached to a mosque) and a golden dome.
Geolocation checks with the collected information revealed that the protest was indeed at the palace of the Emir of Ilorin as the Ilorin Central Mosque is located within Oja Oba in the Emir’s palace.
THE WHISTLER then extracted keyframes from the video using InVid (an open source video verification tool) and subjected the keyframes to reverse image searches on Google Lens and Yandex.
The searches returned results from 2021 in the aftermath of the vandalism of warehouses after the COVID-19 pandemic.
THE WHISTLER was able to trace the origin of the video to May 18, 2021 when the state governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq, paid a visit to the Emir.
Also, the Emir’s palace released a statement denying that such a protest was held.
The palace, however, erroneously claimed that the video was “part of the events that characterised and witnessed during the build-up to the 2019 general elections.”
The statement continued, “The video does not have any connection with the current situation in the country. Recall that on such occasions, the Emir always expresses his concern on the need to ensure that peace and harmony continue to prevail in society.
“At the height of the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the emir expressed high level of concerns and joined governments at all levels in the campaign towards ensuring that the unfortunate situation was contained while he also played frontline roles in championing the pains and interests of the masses during the scarcity of naira which inflicted hardship nationwide with no exemption to anyone irrespective of social, political and economic status.”
VERDICT
The video showing residents of Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, protesting over hunger was shot in 2021, therefore, it’s usage in 2024 to depict the rising cost of food items is MISLEADING
