There has been a surge in misinformation and disinformation as the collation of results of Nigeria‘s 2023 Presidential and National Assembly Elections conducted on Saturday, February 25, 2023 entered the third day.
Our team of researchers, fact-checkers, social media monitors, editors, misinformation & disinformation experts drawn from the coalition partners, are working from the Nigerian Fact-checkers’ Coalition’s (NFC) Election Situation Rooms located in Abuja, Lagos and UK, to debunk election-related misinformation and disinformation contents targeted at spreading fake election results, inciting violence or influencing the outcome of election in general.
READ: Results from Nigeria’s 2023 Presidential, National Assembly elections trickle in (LIVE-CHECK)
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This page is constantly being updated with verified checks. Kindly scroll downward to read them.
Here are the live-checks:
Claim 1
CLAIM: A breaking news headline posted on Facebook by Page 36 News claims that the PDP’s Atiku Abubakar has become the first 2023 presidential candidate to meet the mandatory 25% requirement of votes cast in at least 24 states.
THE FINDINGS: The Facebook post made on 26 February 2023 provided no evidence. The report differs from the headline. It says Abubakar was “projected to become the first candidate to meet the mandatory 25% requirement of votes cast in at least 24 States”. However, as of 7a.m. on Monday, February 27, 2023, INEC had declared presidential election results from less than 20 states.
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCES: Stears, Channels TV
Claim 2
CLAIM: A Twitter user (@LPLagosInfo) on Monday night claimed that Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s (LP) presidential candidate, has won Anambra State with high margin.
THE FINDINGS: Checks by the NFC on credible media platforms such as ICIR, Punch and Premium Times did not show that there has been an official announcement of the presidential election results from Anambra State as collation of results is still ongoing as of Tuesday morning (February 28).
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCES: ICIR, Punch, Premium Times
Claim 3
CLAIM: A Twitter user, #BBTitans (@chiboyskits) claims that INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu was feasting at Tinubu’s house a day before the presidential election.
THE FINDINGS: Analysis conducted by the NFC reveals that the alleged video was shared two months ago on CocoTv YouTube channel and other platforms. It originally depicts moments Tinubu and his team were having dinner after his Chatham House appearance on December 5. 2022. Other extended clips from the scene also show that the man in the footage is not the INEC chairman.
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCES: CocoTV and GoldmyneTV (YouTube Channels)
Claim 4
CLAIM: Social media users claim that INEC uploaded election results from Kano for Kaduna Polling Unit on iReV.
THE FINDINGS: Our findings showed that the result uploaded on the INEC iReV portal for PU 18/10/03/015 in Kakuri Gwari Ward/RA in Kaduna South LGA was actually from one of the polling units in Dawaki Tofa LGA of Kano State.
The NFC also observed the same act was replicated in some other PUs in Lagos, Imo and Rivers states where results from some PUs in the North were uploaded instead.
VERDICT: CORRECT
SOURCE: INEC iRev portal
Claim 5
CLAIM: A Twitter user @Naija_Activist tweeted a photo of Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Works and Housing, with the narrative that he’s manipulating results on INEC’S portal.
THE FINDINGS: A Google image lens search shows that the dashboard on the screen is not INEC’s iRev but the Civic Hive’s 2023 election portal. Civic Hive is a Lagos-based civic-tech organisation.
VERDICT: MISLEADING
SOURCE: Google Reverse Image search , Google Lens.
Claim 6
CLAIM: A Twitter user @uchePokoye tweeted a claim that the Labour Party won 40 % of the votes cast nationwide from the polling units gathered across the country.
THE FINDINGS: Results of the presidential election from all the 36 states and the FCT are yet to be announced as the collation is still ongoing as of 11am on Tuesday, February 28, 2023.
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCES: Multiple media reports
Claim 7
CLAIM: A Twitter user Doctor Penking (@drpenking) claims that the INEC scored Labour Party (LP) 0 votes in Obot Akara LGA of Akwa Ibom State meanwhile LP had 135 votes in just 1 polling unit in Obot Akara (Village Hall, Mbakpo Nkap in Nto Edino IV ward).
THE FINDINGS: The tweet includes a screenshot of presidential election result update for Obot Akara local government area, which has 4,477 recorded for the All Progressives Congress (APC) and 8,029 for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the first two rows. Votes for Labour Party (LP) in the third row and other party listed were yet to be inputted. The completed presidential election results show APC and PDP got the exact number of votes recorded on the screenshot and LP got 2,542 votes.
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCES: Stears, Vanguard
Claim 8
CLAIM: A Twitter user, Adetutu Balogun (@tutsy22) claimed that a University lecturer presented a wrong result at a collation centre.
THE FINDINGS: An extensive Google search revealed that the screenshot shared by Adetutu shows the presidential election results for Oyo State presented by the state collation officer, Professor Olusola Babatunde Kehinde. However, the screenshot of the excel sheet that she tweeted does not capture all the figures in the column which sum up to give the overall results for each political party.
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCES: Channels TV, Daily Trust
Claim 9
CLAIM: A Twitter user Melinda (@frederi63) claims that a polling unit results from Sokoto state was uploaded on INEC result viewing portal (iRev) for a polling unit in Oyigbo Central ward in Rivers state.
THE FINDINGS: The screenshot in the tweet shows the Twitter user referred to the Mayor’s Comp Open Space polling unit in Oyigbo Central ward in Rivers State. We viewed the result uploaded for the polling unit on INEC iRev and confirmed that the uploaded result is from Sokoto State. The polling unit result posted at about 6:27pm on 27 February 2023 is of Kaura Kimba polling unit in Wamakko local government area of Sokoto State.
VERDICT: CORRECT
SOURCE: INEC iRev
Claim 10
CLAIM: A Twitter user @Charles91253085 claimed that there was a protest at INEC office in Abuja on Monday, February 27 following alleged manipulation of the election results.
THE FINDINGS: Using InVid, the NFC discovered that the video had been shared by a Twitter user since Saturday, February 25, 2023 (on the election day).
But contrary to the claim, the incident happened in Warri, Delta State. The protesters were said to have stormed the INEC office in Warri chanting “We must vote”.
The protest was also reported by Punch Newspaper on the same day. Also, there were no media reports of a protest at the INEC office in Abuja by voters on that Monday.
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCES: Punch Newspaper, InVid, Twitter
Claim 11
CLAIM: A Labour Party supporter on Twitter, T. Jay (@Rich_Dawg1), on Tuesday, February 28, tweeted a video with claims that an INEC official is thumb-printing ballot papers.
THE FINDINGS: The alleged video has been online since 2015. It was also reshared during the 2019 elections. Although there is no full context to the clip, the footage does not relate to the ongoing Nigeria’s 2023 elections.
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCE: YouTube (Alex Reports TV )
Claim 12
CLAIM: Former presidential aide, Reno Omokri tweeted that a pastor ‘loyal’ to Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, is calling for a coup after the elections.
THE FINDINGS: Our findings showed that the said pastor, Prophet Ezenwa Ritabbi, founder of Christ as of Old Ministry in Plateau state, preached with regards to the election on Sunday February 26. The pastor was heard urging his congregation to allow things go as God permits stressing that Nigeria is not worth dying for. On his Twitter page, the pastor also called on INEC to ensure fair collation of the Nigerian election results, warning that doing otherwise may be the end of Democracy in Nigeria. The pastor did not call for a coup at any time.
VERDICT: MISLEADING
SOURCES: YouTube (Prophet Ritabbi- God of now now TV), Twitter.
Claim 13
CLAIM: Some social media users claim that a presidential candidate must secure 25% of votes cast in the FCT before he can be declared a winner.
THE FINDINGS: Section 134 (2) of the Electoral Act 2022 says a candidate must have the majority of votes cast and secure at least 25% of votes cast in at least 24 states in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory. What this provision means, according to legal experts, is that FCT is included among the 24 states (two-third) hence securing 25% of votes cast in the FCT is not compulsory to deem a presidential candidate winner.
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCE: Electoral Act 2022
Claim 14
CLAIM: A viral WhatsApp video allegedly shows Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the APC, condemning party members in some parts of Lagos over their failure to win their Local Government Areas (LGAs).
THE FINDINGS: An InVid analysis shows the video is unrelated to the current election. NFC found a version that was posted four years ago on LinkedIn.
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCE: LinkedIn
Claim 15
CLAIM: A video sourced from Arise TV and shared by a Twitter user (@princejoseph0), shows the PDP chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, saying Bauchi and Gombe States have exactly the same results.
THE FINDINGS: Live results published by Civic Hive, and Dataphyte, collated from the iREV and declared at the National Collation Centre, shows Bauchi and Gombe do not have the same results. In Bauchi, APC had 316,694; PDP 426,607; NNPP 72,103, and LP 27,373.
APC had 146,977, PDP-319,123, NNPP-10,520 and LP-26,160 in Gombe.
Live results from Gombe State collation centre support this finding.
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCES: Civic Hive and Dataphyte
Claim 16
CLAIM: A Facebook user claims president Muhammadu Buhari has approved former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s letter to cancel the election.
THE FINDINGS: Former president Olusegun Obasanjo, issued a statement on 27 February, appealing to President Muhammadu Buhari to cancel elections that do not pass the credibility and transparency test. Responding to this, a statement by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said Obasanjo’s letter was a “willful incitement of violence” and asked him not to truncate the elections with his “inciting, self-serving and provocative letter”. The statement added that anyone dissatisfied with the outcome of the elections should follow the necessary legal procedures. At no point did President Buhari approve President Obasanjo’s request to cancel the election.
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCE: Federal Ministry of Information and Culture
Claim 17
CLAIM: A Facebook user, Sagacious Bello Lukman, claims that the Labour Party (LP) candidate Peter Obi won the presidential election in all six area councils in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
THE FINDINGS: The Facebook post got the number of votes pulled by the top contenders right. However, it was incorrect to claim that Obi won all six area councils in the FCT. Media reports of the results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) show that Obi won in four area councils while the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, won in two LGAs.
VERDICT: INCORRECT
SOURCE: Premium Times
READ NIGERIA’S 2023 GENERAL ELECTION LIVE-CHECKS BELOW:
- LIVE-CHECK: Nigeria’s 2023 Presidential and National Assembly Elections
- LIVE-CHECK: Results from Nigeria’s 2023 Presidential, National Assembly elections trickle in
- LIVE-CHECK: Claims about results of Nigeria’s 2023 Presidential, NASS elections circulate online
- LIVE-CHECK: Nigeria’s 2023 Governorship and State Assembly Elections
- LIVE-CHECK: Collation of Votes for Nigeria’s 2023 Governorship and State Assembly Elections ongoing (UPDATED)
*This live-check was jointly researched and written by members of the Nigerian Fact-Checkers’ Coalition (NFC): Nurudeen Akewushola, Faith Abeka, Fatimah Quadri (FactCheckHub); Rosemary Ajayi (Digital Africa Research Lab); Daniel Adaji (The Insight); Elizabeth Ogunbamowo, Lois Ugbede, Cole Praise, Silas Jonathan, Temilade Onilede, Lateef Sanni (Dubawa); Catherine Adeniyi, Motunrayo Joel, Allwell Okpi, Seyi Awojuyigbe, Fatimah Abubakar, Abisola Olasupo (Africa Check); Rejoice Ewodage, Hannah Ajakaiye (FactsMatterNG), Shehu Olayinka and Bamas Victoria (ICIR).
It was edited and approved for publication by Kemi Busari, Caroline Anipah, Simbiat Bakare (Dubawa), David Ajikobi (Africa Check), Ajibola Amzat, and Opeyemi Kehinde (FactCheckHub).
