A claim has circulated online alongside an image that a 19-year-old young man from Plateau State had committed suicide following Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of Labour Party’s (LP) loss at the Nigerian presidential election held on February 25, 2023.
The image shows a young man hanged with a rope.
READ :Â Old photo of presidential election petition court’s sitting resurfaces online
A tweep, @maryam_skits, made the post on Twitter on March 3, 2023, two days after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the winner of the election.
Tinubu, a former Lagos State governor, was declared the president-elect after the 70-year-old polled 8,794,726 votes to win the 2023 presidential election.
The INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, announced Tinubu as the winner at the International Collation Centre in Abuja during the early hours of Wednesday, March 1, 2023.
Tinubu won the election ahead of other contenders — the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Atiku Abubakar; the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi; and the New Nigeria Peoples Party candidate, Rabiu Kwankwaso, The Punch reported.
The tweet reads:
BREAKING!!!! “I WILL TELL GOD @inecnigeria KILLED ME”. A Young boy from Plateau State commits suicide when he realized Obi has been rigged out of d just concluded election. The 19yrs old boy left a short note behind which reads “NO HOPE FOR NIGERIA AGAIN”. INEC killed this guy!
Another Twitter user, @DalapFlourish, also tweeted the same image with a similar caption thus:
*SAD NEWS: I will tell God INEC killed me, Young Boy from Plateau state commit suicide and dies after Obi lost a rigged election. The 19 years old boy left a short note behind which reads “ no hope for Nigeria for the next 20 years after Obi lost the election, #RejectTinubu
The tweet also claimed that the boy left a note behind stating that Nigeria would have no hope in the next 20 years after Obi’s presidential bid.
Multiple blogs including The Eagles Online and CorrectNG had reported the suicide has seen here and here.
It was also posted on popular Nigerian online forum board, Nairaland, has seen here.
CLAIM
19-year-old boy commits suicide after Peter Obi lost the 2023 presidential election.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the image has been online since 2016 and not related to the just-concluded Nigerian presidential election.
When the image was subjected to Google and TinEye reverse image searches, the results show that the image appeared on the internet in December 2016 and resurfaced in March 2017 respectively.
An online news blog, UrhoboToday, on December 26, 2016 published the image with an headline that read: “Yahoo, Yahoo Boy Commits Suicide In Warri.”
Part of the report reads: “A 26 year old suspected internet fraudster known ‘Yahoo,Yahoo’ nickname Chino was said to have committed suicide in Warri, Delta yesterday. Residents of the area said they woke up this morning to see his dangling corpse.”
Several blogs also used the same image and attributed the same claim to it in 2016.
Similarly, the Plateau State Police Command has debunked the claim.
READ ALSO :Â Charly Boy shares fake chart about Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election result
The Command, in a statement signed by its State Public Relations Officer, DSP Alfred Alabo, said the post currently being circulated on some social media platforms about an alleged suicide by a yet-to-be-identified 19-year-old Labour Party supporter over the announcement of presidential results by INEC is false, unfounded, and inciting.
According to the command, the post, which is capable of stirring political uproar, rancor, and conflict in the state, fails to establish the location of the alleged suicidal incident, thereby making the post lack substance of fact, the Nigerian Tribune reported.
THE VERDICT
The claim that a 19-year-old boy committed suicide after Peter Obi lost the presidential election is FALSE; findings revealed that the image is an old photo which has been online since 2016.