BASHIR Ahmad, a former media aide to Nigeria’s ex-president Muhammadu Buhari, has posted an image showing a clean street on his official X account and attributed it to Kano State.
The X post, captioned “This part of Kano is so clean!” has garnered over 380,000 views plus over 600 reposts, more than 4,000 likes and over 900 comments as of November 29, 2024.
READ: Old video of Kano incident used to depict ‘hunger’ protest in Abuja
CLAIM
Image shows a clean district in Kano State.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub revealed that the claim is MISLEADING, as the image is not from Kano State but from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
A reverse image search using Google Lens traced the image to Al-Shatea district in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The same image had previously been shared on X by Naif Saudi, who confirmed its origin.
The account posted the image with a caption in Arabic thus:
الشوارع الداخلية في حي الشاطيء بجدة
ارصفة مشاه تعزز من جودة الحياة وترفع من مستوى المدينة
Using Google Translate, it is translated in English as follows:
“Internal streets in Al-Shatea district in Jeddah. Sidewalks enhance the quality of life and raise the level of the city.”
This is not the first time Ahmad will be sharing false or misleading information on social media. He had once tweeted falsely about the Nigerian government’s intervention in securing Peter Obi’s release from detention in the United Kingdom (UK).
Recall that Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate in Nigeria’s 2023 election, was detained in London in April 2023 by UK immigration officials for alleged impersonation.
The former presidential media aide had once called for stricter regulation of social media platforms in Nigeria, especially TikTok, “to prevent dangerous individuals from using it for their malicious agendas.”
THE VERDICT
The claim that the image shows a clean district in Kano State is MISLEADING; it depicts Al-Shatea district in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
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.
