A claim that the National Population Commission (NPC) is recruiting more Ad-hoc staff to fill in shortage of officials for this year’s population census in Nigeria has been circulating on WhatsApp.
The NPC is the Nigerian government-agency responsible for the nation’s population census which is billed to commence on May 3, 2023.
The claim was contained in a broadcast message sent to various contacts in a WhatsApp group. The message asked individuals to apply for Ad-hoc staff recruitment in the agency allegedly to fill-in shortage of staff needed for the census exercise.
The message read:
NPC ADHOC STAFF RECRUITMENT 2023 ( OPPORTUNITY)
The National Population Commission Recruits Adhoc Staff for 2023 Census to fill the Shortage of staff spaces.Â
APPLY NOW
https://cutt.ly/npc-recruitment
CLAIM
NPC is recruiting more Ad-hoc staff to fill-in staff positions for the 2023 census.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is FALSE.
A careful look at the website link shows that the domain name has features synonymous with most phishing websites which The FactCheckHub had reported in the past.
Whenever users click the web link, it neither direct them to the official web page of the National Population Commission used for the Adhoc recruitment exercise few months ago nor the official homepage of the NPC itself.
Rather, it asks you to fill in personal details like your name and bank details. Thereafter, you will be asked to share to groups and your phone contacts till a ‘green bar is full.’ This is a typical modus operandi of phishing websites and online scams.
A news report by The Nation indicated that the recruitment ended on the 28th of December 2022.
To avoid falling victim to click baits by scammers or phishing websites, learn how to identify phishing scams and websites.
You may also wish to learn how to verify viral WhatsApp messages too.
THE VERDICT
The claim that NPC is recruiting more Ad-hoc staff to fill-in staff positions for Nigeria’s 2023 census is FALSE; application for its ad-hoc recruitment exercise closed since December 2022.
Seasoned fact-checker and researcher Fatimah Quadri has written numerous fact-checks, explainers, and media literacy pieces for The FactCheckHub in an effort to combat information disorder. She can be reached at sunmibola_q on X or [email protected].
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