THE spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, has shared a photo that shows an aerial image of crowd that reportedly attended the campaign of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the party’s flagbearer in Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election, in Sokoto state.
Keyamo, a lawyer and serving Federal Minister of State for Labour and Employment in the current APC-led Nigerian government, tweeted the image alongside three other photos taken at the event with a caption that read:
“More pictures from the mother of all rallies in Sokoto! The signs are all there for all to see! But they are playing! Make dem dey play!! In about a forth-night, the jungle will mature!!”
The tweet has garnered over 1 million views, more than 600 retweets and over 3,000 likes as of February 12, 2023.
Tinubu and his campaign team had on Thursday, February 9, 2023 held a rally in Sokoto state. The rally featured Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari and other APC stalwarts.
CLAIM
Photo shows crowd at APC campaign rally in Sokoto.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is MISLEADING.
The FactCheckHub found out that a Nigerian news platform, PM News, also published the same image in its media report of the rally with a caption that read: Gargantuan crowd at APC’s presidential rally in Sokoto.
But a Google Reverse Image search of the photo shows that the aerial image was taken by Colin Hinkle, with the twitter username: @hinklecolin, an aerial photographer on July 31, 2021 at a 4-Day music festival in Chicago, United States popularly known as Lollapalooza.
In an interview with Business Insider Africa also published by Yahoo News on August 3, 2021, the photographer, Colin Hinkle said the image shows a large crowd who converged at the event in Chicago without wearing masks.
Hinkle said he is an aerial photographer who uses drones or helicopters to gather video or photos from aerial view.
THE VERDICT
The claim that the photo shows crowd at the APC rally in Sokoto is MISLEADING; the photo was taken at Chicago, USA in 2021.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
‘Misleading’ has been added to the headline to reflect our verdict.
Nurudeen Akewushola is a fact-checker with FactCheckHub. He has authored several fact checks which have contributed to the fight against information disorder. You can reach him via [email protected] and @NurudeenAkewus1 via Twitter.
 Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, has shared in Sokoto state.){kind=link}