Fact Check: How Genuine is the “Warrant ID” of the Inspector General of Police Circulating Online?
Claim: PRNigeria detected a Nigeria Police Force (NPF) warrant identity card of the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun circulating on WhatsApp.
Full Text: The image which came with the label “forwarded many times” with a double arrow icon on WhatsApp – indicating that it had gone through a chain of many chats, had the biographic details of the Inspector General of Police, including name, rank, blood group, expiry date and signature conspicuously revealed.
The IG’s passport photograph was placed on the ID card, which has been circulating.
In June 2022, former Inspector-General of Police, IGP Usman Alkali Baba, announced that the Nigeria Police Force is set to launch a digital solution to ensure standardisation and upgrade of the Force identification system to be known as the e-Warrant Card.
The e-Warrant Card would provide seamless identification of officers all over the country as well as eliminate the possibility of criminal elements presenting fake identity cards at police stations personating themselves to be police officers.
The project, which commenced with the approval of the IGP is being carried out by Police ICT experts attached to the Department of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Force Headquarters, Abuja.
The ID card is envisaged to engender a complete digitalization of police identification nationwide and provide a valid basis for effecting arrests with warrants in line with extant laws, as well as many other benefits attached to the use of such e-warrant cards.
Verification: To verify if the copy circulating was the genuine copy of the IGP Kayode Egebtokun’s warrant card, the PRNigeria fact-check team determined to track the source of the image and verify its authenticity.
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The team explored Bing, Yandex, Google, and TinEye reverse image searches with millions of image results but didn’t find any matches for the particular image of the IG’s warrant card.
PRNigeria fact check then decided to use metadata explorer to track GPS coordinates and timestamps, but nothing was found for the citation and source information for the image on the open internet.
We also combed open social media searches like Facebook, TikTok, Twitter and Instagram and the image is not there too.
Based on the foregoing results, PRNigeria fact-check team, therefore, postulates that since the image is not revealed on open source investigations, it must have originated from dark social networks in closed groups like WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc and is still circulating within the closed network not yet on the open social media.
The team then contacted sources within the Police ICT experts attached to the Department of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Force Headquarters, Abuja to verify the authenticity of the ID Card. Still, they cannot confirm that the particular copy of the IGP’s warrant ID card circulating online was genuine.
Another source in the Police Headquarters who spoke on condition of anonymity because he has no authority to talk about the issue, told the PRNigeria fact check team that the information contained in the warrant ID card is usually due within one year, as conspicuously reflected on the expiry date of the card.
Conclusion: PRNigeria could not find the ID Card on open source investigation, which confirms that it emanated from and is circulated on closed networks like WhatsApp, Telegram etc, and even so, the ICT department of the Police Headquarters could not confirm its genuineness.
PRNigeria therefore concludes that there is INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE to prove that the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) warrant identity card of the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun circulating on WhatsApp is the authentic one.
By PRNigeria
