VP-Elect Shettima Inspecting School Project, Not Meeting with Bandits in Video, Says PRNigeria Fact-Check
POLITICS DIGEST – Vice President-Elect, Senator Kashim Shettima, did not pay a visit to any bandit group after the 2023 presidential election, a PRNigeria fact-check has gathered.
The fact-check investigation contradicts a viral video claiming that Shettima recently met with some bandits.
A video of about 1.5 minutes is widely circulated on WhatsApp that is further shared on other social media platforms, especially on Facebook, claiming that Nigeria’s vice president-elect, Sen. Kashim Shettima visited armed bandits in an unknown location in the country. https://prnigeria.com/2023/05/14/did-shettima-visit-bandits/
While verifying the social media claim, PRNigeria traced the origin of the circulated video to June 27, 2017. The original video was 2 minutes and 51 seconds.
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The video was posted by Shettima himself when he was Governor of Borno State after paying an inspection visit to Lamisula Primary School during which additional classrooms were constructed to attract massive enrolment of out-of-school children, who were largely victims of the Boko Haram insurgency.
PRNigeria observed that the then governor of Borno Kashim Shettima in the video spoke multilingually in English, Hausa, and Kanuri and that the men in scarves and glasses were Fulani herdsmen.
However, the men carrying guns, as seen in the footage, were members of the Department of State Security Service (DSS).
Previously, PRNigeria fact checked similar claims of Shettima hobnobbing bandits and Boko Haram terrorists which turned out to be false or misleading.
Meanwhile, the VP-elect is notorious for his wisecracks with Fulani since he became Governor of Borno State. A short review of his social accounts will prove such.
Based on the verification of the footage, PRNigeria discovered that the video was taken while Kashim Shettima was inspecting a school project as Governor of Borno State in 2017, and could not have been after the 2023 elections, that he and his principal, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, were returned as President and Vice President-Elect.
The fact-check, therefore, concludes that the claim is not only MISLEADING but FALSE.
