But fake news peddlers didn’t start today, and such rumours are an experience President Buhari must have come to know too well since he assumed office in 2015. Not a week seems to go by without a reputable but not-too-vigilant news medium, a fake news merchant, a traffic-hungry blogger, or a social media troll manufacturing a sensational publication that often turns out to be an empty rumour.
It claimed that Buhari had made the statement in France. The tweet was retweeted more than 1000 times. The President’s numerous medical trips began in mid-2016. When he returned in September 2017, he had, as should have been expected, lost weight. “The man you are looking at in the television is not Buhari… His name is Jubril, he’s from Sudan. After extensive surgery they brought him back,” he said.
The same footage had earlier been doctored to suggest that London buses were carrying adverts calling for the imprisonment of former senate president Bukola Saraki.Former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu was assaulted on August 17 by activists claiming to be from the separatist Indigenous People of Biafra group as he attended a conference in the German city of Nuremberg.
Social media had fun while the rumour lasted, with users throwing in memes and pictures aplenty to poke fun at themselves over the ‘palace wedding’ that never was.A video that claimed Aisha Buhari was locked up in a room in Aso Villa after she returned from London last Thursday was shared and viewed tens of thousand times on social media.
“I told them: ‘You know the people responsible for these rumours.’ But they left the people to go scot-free till today. So this one too, I am not surprised or bothered.”Buhari did not attend the Yokohama summit? It claimed that footage and pictures of Buhari arriving in Japan were “fake photoshopped images and digitally altered videos”.
This claim is false; the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union had representatives at the inauguration and did not protest Buhari’s re-election.A recent post shared more than 1,000 times on Facebook claimed that the Supreme Court annulled the February 23 presidential election and ruled that the Independent National Electoral Commission should conduct a new vote.
The claim was shared by Nigerian opposition figures — including Senator Ben Murray-Bruce and Reno Omokri, a former media aide to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan.
fake community talking about fake media, how is that possible under such a vindictive regime?