A video showing young girls wielding guns inside a bush have surfaced online with a claim that it shows the students kidnapped by bandits from Kuriga in Kaduna.
This follows the report of the abduction of at least 287 students and a principal, Abubakar Isah on February 7, 2024 when bandits invaded the Local Education Authority (LEA) Primary and Junior Secondary School, Kuriga, in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
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An X user, @sir_elijah_n posted the video with a caption thus:
“It is finished. These are the kidnapped students from kaduna 2days ago. Nigeria is gone.”
Another X user, @BishopPOEvang posted the video with another caption that read:
“Are these not the kidnapped students thee bandits are trying to turn to female terrorist?
My God save us from these government.”
The post has generated over 27,000 views, more than 200 reposts and with over 200 likes as of March 21, 2024.
CLAIM
Video shows students abducted by bandits in Kaduna.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is MISLEADING.
Our fact-checker subjected the keyframes in the video obtained via InVID, a video verification tool to Google Reverse Image search, and the result shows that the video has been online since 2022.
An earlier version of the video, which was screenshot in reports by Naija news and Daily Post, indicates that the video was released by terrorists after the abduction of the daughters of a former Accountant General of Zamfara state, Abubakar Bello Furfuri. The incident was also reported by the Premium Times.
In the video, the terrorists threatened to turn them into criminals, who would be used to attract other targets of their criminal activities if their parents failed to pay the ransom they demanded. The young girls were abducted in June 2022.
Meanwhile, a subsequent report by TheCable showed that the girls later regained freedom after 7 months in captivity.
THE VERDICT
The claim that the video shows students of Kuriga in Kaduna State abducted by bandits is MISLEADING; the video shows girls abducted in Zamfara state in June 2022.
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.
