Claim
A viral social media post alleges that the Borno State Police Command has charged five men accused of printing and wearing T-shirts bearing the inscription “Tinubu Must Go” in Maiduguri.
The post, which can be seen on different accounts on Facebook, Instagram, X platforms and also published on the news platform Sahara Reporters.
According to a report from Sahara Reporters, the five men arrested were identified as Baba Aji Gremami, 44; Mustapha Abba Yemen, 28; Abbacha Mohammed Ali, 32; Adam Umar Gubio, 21; and Abdulhamid Mohammed, 21.
The caption of the story on Sahara Reporters reads BREAKING: BORNO POLICE ARREST FIVE MEN FOR WEARING ‘TINUBU MUST GO’ T- SHIRT, REMAND THEM IN PRISON.
The posts re-shared by Abahuraira Muhd Mainasara, Usman M.A Karofi and Idan Kunne Yaji on Facebook have the same caption, while Nigeria Stories on Instagram shared the proposed image of the alleged men arrested, with them putting on a white round-neck shirt with the inscription, ‘TINUBU MUST GO’.
The Nigeria stories’ post on Instagram had a presidential candidate of ADC, Atiku Abubakar, calling for the release of the five men allegedly arrested over the Tinubu Must go T-shirts.
Also on the X platform, Sahara Reporter’s claim on the ‘TINUBU MUST GO’ post has garnered 1,886 reposts, 274 Quotes, 2540 likes and 298k views.
Why We Checked
In the build-up to the 2027 election in Nigeria, posts like this could promote violence or threaten the peace of the community and lead to hijacking by criminals, considering the vulnerability of the state to violent extremist attacks, as a result of insecurity in the North East.
Verification
We verified the image through Google reverse image search to identify the exact matches of the image to the story
We also checked the X handle of the Borno State Police Command, and there was no update or reaction from the police to the purported arrest of the Five Men as claimed by Sahara Reporters.
We also searched mainstream media to ascertain the likelihood of the reportage, but no mainstream media reported the story.
However, a thorough examination of the image on an AI video search tool, hivedetect.ai, returned a 3.1% likelihood of being AI-generated and 0% likely to be a deepfake.
Verdict
The claim that the five men wearing ‘Tinubu Must Go ’ shirts were arrested by the Borno state police command was unproven and misleading; no evidence that the police arrested five men in Borno as claimed could not be substantiated.
Also, a check of the images on an AI detection tool showed a 3.1% likelihood it was created with the aid of artificial intelligence.
