Fawaz Adebisi
IN SHORT: The Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, has been trailing the former governor of Kogi state, Yahaya Bello, over an alleged over 80bn fraud.
This was following an order given by a High Court in Abuja after the ex-governor refused to show up in court.
Having declared him wanted, the EFCC laid siege to Bello’s residence in Abuja to effect the court’s order, but, he reportedly fled.
However, amidst this saga, pictures, purportedly said to be that of Bello, surfaced online, showing how he was trying to jump over his fence to flee from EFCC.
The picture, which has been forwarded to many users on WhatsApp, was captioned with the below words.
“☝️☝️☝️Look at where yeye Bello was jumping over the fence of his house at Number 9, Benghazi Street, Wuse Zone 4, to go and meet Ododo’s Security Details so as to evade EFCC’s arrest.”
VERIFICATION
Background check on this image showed that it was a fake image which was recently edited.
According to TinEye, a website used to fact check images, the original image was first used in 2014.
The image was used alongside a news story published by Premium Times in 2014, to show how politicians were jumping over fences to save themselves from the pandemonium at the National Assembly.
The news article was headlined “PHOTO NEWS: Teargas, fence-jumping, police brutality in Nigeria’s National Assembly”, https://www.premiumtimesng.com/promoted/171692-photo-news-teargas-fence-jumping-police-brutality-nigerias-national-assembly.html .
VERDICT: Disinformation!
PLATFORM TIMES found out that the picture was deliberately falsified and was intended to harm Yahaya Bello.
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