On Thursday, June 20, 2024, a controversial post claiming that the South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, said he mistook his Nigerian counterpart, President Bola Tinubu as a personal translator surfaced on social media.
This controversial post was shared via Facebook by the user, Igbo Times Magazine, a page with 288k followers.
The post read: “Just In: I Mistook President Tinubu as a personal translator in African National Meeting – Cyril Ramaphosa allegedly Explain why he
Ignored President Tinubu.
“In a surprising turn of events at the recent African National Meeting, President Tinubu of Nigeria found himself mistakenly assumed to be a personal translator by Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa.
Full Details Here 
A screenshot of the Facebook post by Igbo Times Magazine
This controversial post came after a video alleging that President Tinubu was snubbed by Ramaphosa at his inauguration went viral.
The virality and the controversy surrounding this post prompted the fact-check you are about to read.
Verification
The controversial post came with a link from its website, asking readers to click for full details of the report..
This will be a perfect place to begin our verification.
We clicked the shared link and it redirected us to a website.
The website is filled with numerous pop up adverts, making it difficult to navigate.
A look at the website shows that it frequently publishes controversial and misleading reports.
Screenshot of recent post from the website
After minutes of back and forth, we were able to locate the news report.
The headline of the report reads: “President Tinubu mistaken as personal translator in African National Meeting – Cyril Ramaphosa allegedly explains why ”.
The report was not credited to any writer, nor was any known publication quoted in the report.
First, it is important to point out that President Tinubu did not travel to South Africa for a National Meeting.
Such an event never took place on the said date.
However, Tinubu was in South Africa for Cyril Ramaphosa’s inauguration which took place at the Union Building in Pretoria.
This was the venue where the video alleging that Tinubu was snubbed was captured.
The report also failed to mention when or where President Cyril Ramaphosa made the statement of mistaking Tinubu for a personal interpreter.
We combined the keywords; Ramaphosa Tinubu for a Google search with expectations of finding this report on a reputable website, but we were greeted with disappointment.
However, we did find a report that is of great help to our fact check.
We found reports of President Ramaphosa appreciating Tinubu.
We clicked one of the reports, by Daily Post, with the headline: Thank you for honouring invitation to my inauguration – Ramaphosa to Tinubu.
We had hoped that we would find this claim in this report, but no.
Daily Post reports that after the meeting between President Bola tinubu and Ramaphosa, the South African President said: “Thank you so much for coming for the inauguration. I was very happy to see my brother at the ceremony”.
This was also reported by other reputable and well known publications.
Now, let’s check YouTube, should Ramaphosa have made this statement in a video.
Let’s use the keyword; ‘Ramaphosa Tinubu Personal Interpreter’.
I’m
Screenshot of search result from YouTube
Our search result does not show any video capturing the moment Ramaphosa made such a statement.
Let’s take a look at the social media handles of Ramaphosa to confirm if he posted such a statement.
The official X handle of the South African President is @CyrilRamaphosa, with 2.8M followers, and was created in January 2015.
Of all the numerous posts shared by the SA President on that day, such a statement was never captured, whether in video or text.
Conclusion
It is very clear that the post claiming that President Ramaphosa of South Africa said he mistook President Tinubu for a personal interpreter was only shared to stir controversy, gain traffic, and mislead the public.
The Claim is a false one
