A video surfaced on social media which claimed buildings collapsed on school children in Nigeria, has been circulating online, particularly on Facebook.
The 57-second footage was posted on 17th, March 2024, by verified Facebook user, Gara Gombe with 43k followers showing crowds shouting and rescuing school children in the collapsed building.
“School structure collapses on kids in Toro Bauchi State…very sad”, the caption reads. “This is in a country where politicians are buying Prado SUVs and allegedly stealing N500 million each from padded national budgets. They can’t build proper schools for their children. Some people waiting in the wings to embezzle public funds are preaching “Keep hope alive.” 🙄🙇♀️😭💔❌”.
The claim has attracted 19 reactions, 4 comments, and 6 shares as of press time.
The viral clips were shared by many Facebook users as seen here, here, here and here.
CLAIMS
Buildings collapsed on school children in Toro, Bauchi State of Nigeria.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by WikkiTimes show that the claim is false.
To verify the trending claim, WikkiTimes subjected the screenshot of the video to keyframe analysis, using Yandex, a fact-checking tool used to verify images. The result led us to a video incident that occurred on January,13th, 2023 at Mutshilia Primary School located at the 28th CMUCC in the centre of Tshume.
It read “According to the report, information that reached us yesterday afternoon from Mr. Francois Omanyondo, communicator of the Annual Conference of Central Congo/UMC, a total of two walls of this school collapsed during class hours, causing a total of 16 serious injuries. Figures confirmed by Mr.Francois Lububu, superintendent of the Tshumbe district”.
THE VERDICT
The claim that buildings collapsed on school children in Toro Bauchi State, Nigeria is misleading; findings show that the collapsed school building reported as from Central Congo occurred in 2023.
