Fact-Check: Did Bandits Die Mysteriously in Nupe Community After Kidnapping Spree?
Claim: A viral video circulating on WhatsApp shows several men lying dead with guns slung around their necks. The accompanying message claims these are bandits who kidnapped locals in a Nupe-speaking community in Kwara State, specifically in Lafiagi, and began dying mysteriously within 24 hours of the abduction.
The text shared with the video reads:
“This happened yesterday in a Nupe-speaking area of Kwara State, to be precise, in Lafiagi. The indigenes were kidnapped and taken to unknown locations. Within twenty-four hours, the bandits began to die one after the other, as depicted in the video. The above is the edited version of the video in the Nupe language.”
In the video, PRNigeria identified the spoken language as Nupe. When translated, the audio narration claims that the kidnapped victims were taken into a forest and that, by morning, the kidnappers started dying one after another, without any known cause.
It further mentions that the victims were now scattered in the forest, trying to escape, and people should congratulate them as “God has answered their prayers.” The narrator also prays that bandits will never return to Nupe land.
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Verification: To verify the authenticity of the claim, PRNigeria performed a forensic analysis of the video by extracting key frames and conducting reverse image searches on them.
The results revealed that the images in the video were not from Kwara State but were actually from Borno State.
They show eight Boko Haram/ISWAP terrorists who were neutralized by troops in a joint operation involving the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) and Hybrid Forces (HF) in Manawaji, Gamboru Ngala Local Government Area, Borno State.
The military operation successfully eliminated the insurgents during a fierce firefight. Weapons and ammunition were recovered from the scene.
Keyword searches further corroborated this finding, matching the same photos and details to verified news reports about the Borno operation conducted under Operation Hadin Kai.
Conclusion: The video is a collection of pictures of eight neutralized Boko Haram/ISWAP Insurgents, killed in Borno State by Nigerian security forces it has no connection to Kwara state.
Verdict: The claim that bandits mysteriously died in a Nupe-speaking community in Kwara State after abducting locals is false. The video used to support this narrative is misleading and misattributed.
By PRNigeria
