ON September 10,2020, a report by a television news station – Television Continental Nigeria (TVC News Nigeria) – claimed that Nigeria has emerged the third most terrorised country in the world.
This claim which has been republished by several blogs including hallmarknews and Salonedaily has also gone viral on social media.
A screenshot of the infograph used by the TVC to present the report has been tweeted by several Twitter influencers including PDPVanguard, Charles the 1st, Chidi Odinkalu. and Ayemojubar – these Twitter handles have large followings on the social media platform.
For instance, the tweet by Ayemojubar has garnered over 6,600 likes, 3,900 retweets and 648 comments as at 2:30PM on September 15, 2020.
THE CLAIM
That Nigeria ranked third as the most terrorised country in the world in the 2020 Global Terrorism Index.
#FACTCHECK: Is #Nigeria ranked 3rd most terrorised country in the world in the 2020 #GlobalTerrorismIndex, according to the @tvcnewsng?
For more of #FactCheckHub reports, visit: https://t.co/wKlQJ1lgu6 pic.twitter.com/ovvRTU0h6R
— FactCheckHub (@thefactcheckhub) September 15, 2020
THE FINDINGS:
The FactCheckHub verified that the claim emanated from a TVC programme tagged Journalists Hangout which is anchored by Ayodele Ozugbakun. The episode where the claim was made was published on the TVC’s YouTube channel on September 10, 2020 with the headline “Nigeria emerges most terrorised country in Africa, ranks worse than Syria, Yemen, Somalia”.
The episode focused on discussing the index as a 2020 ranking.
The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) is a ranking report published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). It was developed by IT entrepreneur and IEP’s founder, Steve Killelea. The index is often used to systematically rank the nations of the world, according to terrorist activities. It has been in existence since the year 2000.
The GTI ranks based on data gotten from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD).
Checks by The FactCheckHub shows that the GTI is released in November annually, and the most recent index is still the one released in November, 2019, while no data has been released for the year 2020.
Similarly, The FactCheckHub reached out to the Institute – IEP- to confirm if the 2020 Global Terrorism Index has been released. The insititute, on September 15, 2020, in response to the enquiry stated that the 2020 global terrorism index is yet to be released.
“The Global Terrorism Index 2020 will be released in November 2020 on a date still to be confirmed,” the mail reads.
A look at the previous records shows that Nigeria ranked 3rd in the 2018 and 2019 but the data for the 2020 as put forward by TVC has not been released, thereby making the claim MISLEADING.
THE VERDICT:
Based on information presented above, the claim that Nigeria ranked third as the most terrorised country in the world in the 2020 Global Terrorism Index is MISLEADING.
