On Sunday, May 19, 2024, a controversial post claiming that Senator Hope Uzodimma declined Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s invitation to Rivers State surfaced on social media.
The content of this post was so disturbing that in a twinkle of an eye, the comment section was filled with netizens attacking Uzodimma.
The controversy that trailed this post, and the potential dangers that it may accompany is what prompted this factcheck you are about reading.
The said post was shared on Facebook by Progressive Nigerian Politics, a user with 66k followers who claims to be a digital creator.
Progressive Nigerian Politics shared the same photo Uzodimma uses on his official Facebook page with the caption: “Senator Hope Uzodinma, the governor of Imo State, specifically declined General SIM Fubara’s invitation to visit Rivers State today.
It was alleged that he said: “No sensible person will choose to associate with a government headed by an ingrate without focus and coordination”.
Screenshot of the post
First, we searched through all the official handles of Senator Hope Uzodimma, including Facebook, and X etc.
We found out that Hope Uzodimma never published such statement.
We combined some keywords and searched on Google to see if this report was published by any ‘reputable’ media house.
Again, we were greeted by disappointment.
Our expectations were even high, because, not only did any reputable media house not publish such report, we did not find it anywhere on Google.
Screenshot from Google search
Perhaps he made the statement in a video, and the media is yet to report it, so we decided to visit YouTube.
Again, we searched and searched but there was nothing of such.
Screenshot from YouTube search
Conclusion
From our findings, and facts before us, it is clear that this post was intentionally shared to gain traffic.
It was also shared to mislead the public who had already fallen for it by bullying and attacking Governor Uzodimma.
A quick check on the Progressive Nigerian Politics handle shows that the post has been deleted.
This came after 24 hours.
This further solidifies our findings that the post was just made to gain traffic.
