Nigeria Protests: The Misinformation Circulating Online Today

A demonstrator wearing a blindfold with an inscription "End Sars", gestures during protest against alleged police brutality in Lagos, Nigeria October 17, 2020. Picture taken October 17, 2020. REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja.

Protests about the Sars police unit have been going on for two weeks
Protests began earlier this month in Nigeria calling on the authorities to abolish a controversial police unit.

We have looked at some of the misinformation that has spread online.

A striking image of a woman called Ugwu Blessing Ugochukwu crying while holding a folded Nigerian flag, and sitting on top of a statue have been widely shared on Twitter.

Screen shot of social post labelled False
The image is real, and she had joined protests in south-eastern Nigeria. But as the image was shared, people started adding misleading information.

"Not one brother...3...on the same day...killed and dumped in a well," a widely-circulated reply to one of the posts with the image said, claiming she'd lost family members at the hands of the police.When we contacted a spokesperson for Ms Ugochukwu called Gideon Obianime, he told us this was not true.

He said Ms Ugochukwu herself was briefly detained by Sars forces in 2018, but although she has brothers, none of them had been killed by Sars forces.

"I think people started adding assumptions to the photo. She has been getting a lot of backlash [over this]," Mr Obianime told the BBC.
This unproven claim has gone viral - that a soldier cannot shoot someone holding the Nigerian flag.

It's been widely shared on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, with some suggesting there's an unwritten military code to that effect.

The claim appears to have originated from a screenshot of a conversation, in which someone says they were told this by their dad, a retired army officer.

Someone replies saying: "I think this is military code... You guys should repost so protesters will see."

However, there's no evidence for this, and some accounts have since deleted their posts after other online users pointed out it was misleading.

Onyekachi Umah, a lawyer in Nigeria, told the BBC there were laws about respecting the national flag, but added: "Just the fact that someone is holding the flag would not mean they [the army] cannot act."

We have asked the army to find out if the practice is not to target any protester holding the flag, but they have yet to respond.

However, a Nigerian journalist told us they had asked a former senior officer about this, and had been told no such practice existed. few days into the protests, a video was posted online showing one of President Muhammadu Buhari's advisers, Femi Adesina, apparently referring to them as just "child's play".

Many interpreted this to mean the president's adviser was dismissing the protests.

Alongside the video was a message: "If you are not angry enough, I hope this video helps you."

But the video is old and has been edited out of context.
And read this
It relates to a different set of protests held two months ago - and has nothing to do with the Sars issue.     And read this :https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54575219 

Source: jsportnewsaddess.blogspot.com