Contrary to Al-Mustapha’s Claim, PRNigeria Fact-Check Reveals Borno Lacks ‘Californium’
By Idris Umar Feta and Lawan Bukar Maigana,
There is no evidence of a location in Borno State where there are large deposits of Californium. The foregoing was revealed by an investigation of PRNigeria.
PRNigeria, carried out the investigation while fact-checking the claim that Borno, one of the Northeastern States, has a large deposit of a highly radioactive element, Californium-252. https://prnigeria.com/2023/04/08/borno-californium-as-al-mustapha/
The former Presidential candidate of Action Alliance (AA) and former Chief Security Officer to the Late General Sani Abacha, retired Major-General Hamza Al-Mustapha, claimed that Borno state has a highly radioactive element, Californium -252 in abundance.
The former intelligence officer made this assertion on December 06, 2022, as a Guest at the “Reality Radio and Television Magazine Program” convened by the Brekete Family.
According to Hamza Al-Mustapha, the said precious stone, Californium-252 is responsible for the Boko Haram insurgency and other security challenges bedeviling the state for more than a decade.
Sequel to Al-Mustapha’s assertion, PRNigeria ran a quick Google search of the most expensive elements in the world and the results indicate that Californium is one of them.
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The expensive elements are in the following order; Polonium-209 ($49.2 trillion), Actinium-255 ($29 trillion), Technetium-99m ($1.9 trillion), Berkelium-249 ($185 billion), Californium-249 ($185 billion), Curium-248 ($160 billion), Californium-252 ($60 billion) and Curium-244 ($185 million) to mention a few.
Further research however reveals that Californium-252 is not found in consumer products or widely available for commercial use but is found in research facilities and laboratories that use it for various purposes.
Further checks by PRNigeria on Study.com – an online study platform with over 30 million students monthly student usage – further reveal that Californium (Cf -252) is a synthetic, or man-made chemical element, that is to say, the element is not found naturally occurring in nature, but rather produced artificially.
The name californium is derived from “California”, which is the name of the state in the United States of America where the element was first discovered and synthesized.
PRNigeria learns that Californium is a very rare and expensive element, with a cost per gram that can reach millions of dollars. Due to its high cost and radioactive nature, it is typically used in very small quantities and only by highly specialized organizations or research institutions.
PRNigeria used search engine options and also reached out to various contacts to verify the presence of Californium in Borno state. There is no publicly known place where the element can be found or processed in the state.
Based on the available information gathered by PRNigeria, the element doesn’t even exist in nature but is rather being synthesized artificially in the laboratory under strict conditions.
PRNigeria, therefore, concludes that the claim by Hamza Al-Mustapha that Borno State has Californium elements in abundance is misleading and FALSE.
