AN X user, Sarki (@waspapping_), has claimed that there’s no single university in Southeastern Nigeria with mosque on its premises.
He made the claim while responding to an X user who challenged him to name a southern university with a single mosque.
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The post by @waspapping_ read:
“There isn’t a single university in the entire South East that has a mosque on its premises. If you can find one university in the Southeast with a mosque, I’ll give you N200k.”
The claim has generated more than half a million views, with over 1,400 likes and more than 200 reposts as of April 30, 2024.
This follows the allegation made by the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Reverend Father Matthew Kukah, who claimed that public universities in Northern Nigeria are not open to the idea of having churches built on their campuses.
CLAIM
No single university with mosque on its premises in Southeastern Nigeria.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is FALSE.
Contrary to Sarki’s claim, The FactCheckHub found some Nigerian universities located in the Southeast region that have mosques on their premises.
The southeast geopolitical zone of Nigeria is made up of five states, namely, Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States with eighty-five Local Government Areas (LGAs) and a population of over twenty million people dwelling in over ten commercial cities and large towns, according to a 2016 report. (See the region’s map here).
For instance, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in Enugu State has a central mosque. The mosque serves as an avenue for Muslims, especially students in the university to perform their obligatory and voluntary prayers.
It will be recalled that the Daily Trust had in 2016 reported that the UNN Central Mosque remain uncompleted 55 years after the building’s foundation was laid.
Photos of the uncompleted UNN mosque were also seen here as published in October 2018.
A report by The Record in 2021 also indicated that mosque was in use as of May that year as prayers were held there.
Similarly, Michael Okpara University located in Abia state has a mosque built by the Muslim community in the university. Even though the mosque has not been completely furnished, the Muslim students have started using the mosque to observe five daily prayers.
These instances contradict the claim by Sarki that there is no single university with a mosque on its premises in the Southeast region.
THE VERDICT
The claim that there is no single university with mosque on its premises in Southeastern Nigeria is FALSE; checks show that both UNN and Michael Okpara University in Enugu and Abia States respectively have mosques on campus.
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.
