FALSE: A viral video showing the killing of three armed men seen disrupting voting processes did not happen in Nigeria

Claim: Three people have been shot in Nigeria on election day

Source: Twitter

Verdict: FALSE

Researched by Gifty Tracy Aminu

A video showing four men on two motorbikes, wielding guns, and disrupting the voting process at a polling station is being widely circulated on Twitter and portrayed as having happened in Nigeria in the ongoing general elections.

The 30-second-long video also shows police officers gunning down the armed men.
According to one Twitter user: “three souls down just because of one politician. How much dem pay you. See people Papa na.”

Another Twitter user said: “Happening now in Ikorodu. Stay safe guys!!! #obiwon #NigeriaElections2023 Peter obi No Labour Party”

Background

Nigeria goes to the polls today, February 25, 2023, to elect a new President, Senators and House Representatives across the 36 states of the country.
The race for the next president is being contested among 18 registered political parties, and 93,469,008 registered voters are expected to cast their ballot.

Fact-check

Using InVID Verification tools, FactSpace has found that the video first appeared on the internet during Ghana’s preparation towards the general election in 2020.

Analyzing the video, we found that it was captured at Ghana’s Police Headquarters and the Police uniforms were for the Ghana Police Service.

FactSpace also noticed that the ballot boxes have the Coat of Arms, a symbol used by the Ghana Electoral Commission on all electoral boxes, distributed to polling stations in the country.

Meanwhile, using Reverse Image Search, FactSpace traced the video to Pulse Ghana’s Facebook Page, an online news platform, which published the video on November 5, 2020.

“Ghana Police Training for election 2020,” the news portal, Pulse Ghana captioned the video.

Verdict

Therefore, the claim shared on Twitter is FALSE.

Watch the tweet below:

Happening now in ikorodu
Stay safe guys!!! ????????#obiwon #NigeriaElections2023 Peter obi No Labour Party pic.twitter.com/W2GSvMjZv4

— 9jaXavier ✸ (@9jaxavier0) February 25, 2023