Social media reports on Thursday morning that former military President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida is dead are false.
Using Hoaxy, it was discovered the source of poster @JoeKing61333039 had the largest tweets and retweets of the information in the past 24 hours.
A tweet by @IPOB Amsterdam with username JoeKing61333039 was posted around 11.16 am on May 19.
The post reads: “Breaking News, One is down: IBRAHIM BABANGIDA IBB is Dead (https://t.co/w2cef028iX).”
The post had 330 retweets, 19 quote tweets and 368 likes.
JoeKing61333039 joined Twitter in July 2020 and has 1,127 followers and following 800 people.
Majority of his posts are about the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
Hoaxy visualises the spread of claims and related fact-checking online.
A claim may be a fake news article, hoax, rumour, conspiracy theory, satire or even an accurate report.
Stories about IBB’s death
There has been various news in the media about the death of IBB for a long time. Before Thursday’s report, there was another news on May 10 before Sallah, claiming the former President was dead.
But during the Sallah celebration on May 14-15, IBB received a lot of visitors in his Uphill mansion in Niger state.
On Thursday, IBB received Niger Deputy Governor, Ahmed Ketso, who paid him Sallah homage.
Verification
The Nation‘s correspondent visited the residence of the former military President in Minna to verify if the news about his death was true.
One of the media aides to the former Military President, Mahmud Abdullahi, said the report of IBB death is false and misleading.
According to him, in Islam, death is not hidden as anyone who dies would be buried, which cannot be hidden.
Mahmud stated that there has been news in the past week that the former Military President is dead, saying he does not know why people are determined to see IBB dead.
“Death is not something that is hidden in the North. If the former President is dead, the news would not be hidden and cannot be hidden,” he stated.
The Nation also reached out to other sources in the Uphill residence who said all was well with the former President.
Our correspondent went to Uphill and did not see any unusual movement in or out of the residence, which is unusual in any home where someone dies.
Our correspondent did not see any car going in or out and when trying to cross the front gate into the home, the security said that no one can go in without an appointment.
When asked if there was any incident, the security said nothing was happening in the house.
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