On Monday, May 13, 2024, a video of Governor Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State, vowing to open a panel of inquiry into the affairs of governance in the state emerged online.
That video spread like wildfire, and in no time left #Fubara trending on virtually every social media platform. Wondering why? misinformation.
The virality of this video and the controversies surrounding it sparked our curiosity, hence, we decided to conduct a fact-check, and here is our findings.
The video was posted on Facebook by the user, Politics Nigeria with the caption; “Gov. Fubara Vows To Investigate Wike’s Administration As Rivers State Political Crisis Escalates | #Politicsnigeria”.
We observed that the video, as posted by Politics Nigeria was just 56 seconds, and edited by RSGH Media, making it look suspicious.
From the description on it Facebook page, Politics Nigeria is an online news platform that operates in Nigeria. It is headquartered in Abuja.
The Facebook page has 286k followers and is a verified handle.
Further search on Google directed us to the platform’s website; https://politicsnigeria.com, and from our observation, the page is a secured website, in fact, it ranks number one on Google search with the query; politics Nigeria.
The website was also recognised as a registered domain name when we carried out a check using the Spyonweb tool
We decided to dig a little further.
A query on YouTube with the same keywords; Fubara Investigate Wike, shows that TVC News also posted the same video.
TVC captioned the video; Why I Will Probe Wike’s Administration – Gov Fubara.
Interestingly, TVC posted a longer version of the same video (5 minutes, 26 seconds), which we took our time to watch till the end.
After watching the video, we can say that the short video shared by Politics Nigeria on Facebook was not doctored, the audio was not tampered with, however the video was edited and the time frame shortened.
We also entered the same search query; Fubara Investigate Wike on Google, and we found that many well-known platforms had published the news.
Publications like, Punch Newspaper, Daily Trust, TheCable, Vanguard News, ThisDay, among many others published the news on the same date, May 13.
This further confirms the authenticity of the viral video.
However, there are some questions begging for answers, Questions like, did Fubara say that he will probe Wike’s administration? is Fubara’s panel targeted at Wike as widely reported?
Conclusion
Indeed, our findings confirms that the person in the video is Governor Fubara of Rivers State. The video was not doctored, neither was the audio tampered with.
The video was recorded in the Government House in Rivers State during the swearing in of Mr Dagogo Israel Iboroma, SAN, as the new Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, on Monday.
However, at no point did we hear Fubara say that the enquiry he wishes to set up is to probe the past admistration.
“So, my brother, Dagogo Iboroma, you are going to be the brand new Attorney-General of our dear State. SSG, give him his letter, he is the Attorney-General.
“Why are we bringing you at this very critical time? We have a lot of issues around us. We believe that you are not going to be the one that when they send service to you, you go and file “nolle prosequi” or you go and file one thing that would kill us here.
“Let me also say this, you have a big task. We will be setting up a judicial panel of inquiry to investigate the affairs of governance. So, brace up, I am not going back on it.”
Those were the exact words of Fubara.
We cannot conclude that Fubara is setting up the panel of inquiry to investigate Wike as widely reported, because he never said such.
It is clear that the caption given to this video is not just aimed at gaining traffic, but to mislead.
It is until the panel of inquiry is formed, and their tasks outlined, that is when we can say for sure, who or which administration is targeted.
