A Facebook page Igbo Times Magazine published a post on May 21, 2024, by 11:09 A.M. a post saying: “I oversee the worst Presidential election petition since the history of Nigeria. The money offered to us, was what no judge can overlook, Tinubu failed woefully – Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem purportedly express regret”.
The Post is claiming that Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, who is the president of the Court of Appeal, is making statements, claiming that the judges were offered huge sums of money and that the 2023 presidential election petition was the worst in the history of Nigeria
HaltFake decided to verify this claim because it has potent implications
Verification
At the time of making this verification, the Facebook post had 3 likes.
Reading through the post, A link was shared so that readers could read the details of the news.
But when the link was clicked, it led to a dead-end
Above is a screenshot of the page showing the dead-end.
Searching through their website, a full story could be seen.
The website is not easily navigable. There were too many adverts popping up. Going through other stories, one can find many weird stories. This suggests that the post was created for sinister purposes, possibly to gain traffic to the page so that visitors can be trapped in the pop-up adverts.
A further search of the internet for the exact statement purportedly made by the president of the Court Of Appeal, no credible media outlet carried it or any resemblance.
The only other website that carried it is Daily Excessive. The website was also observed to peddle fake news and disinformation. Some of such verified fake news are these:
“ Breaking News: Tinubu has allegedly ordered a halt in food supply to South East from the North Amid hardship, says Igbos didn’t vote for me ” to list a few
When you visit www.dailyexcessive.com, it also has cross-promotion of similar adverts like the Igbo Times magazine website, implying a connection between these actors.
As controversial as this claim is, It fails the test of pluralism of the media as it was not trending in online media, traditional media, or social media.
Therefore the verdict of this claim is false.
