CLAIM: A 56 seconds video widely circulating on blogs and social media claims that the Nigerian Army in a Press briefing accused Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike of trying to induce the military with huge sums of money during the 2023 presidential and national assembly election.
Full-Text: The video recently appeared on Remedy Blog’s (@remedy_blog) Tweet on 4th March 2023 with an accompanying text that reads: “Nyesom Wike tried to bribe us to compromise election – Nigerian Army cried out”.
It shows an unidentified military officer on a podium with microphones of different media stations reading from a text as follows, “equally of grave concern is the daring attempt by the governor of Rivers State his excellency Barrister Nyesom Ezenwo Wike to compromise security agencies particularly…Nigerian Army with hefty financial inducements to help him in the illegitimate act of thwarting a free and fair election process to his favour while at the same time, accusing the Nigerian Army and its command hierarchy of being biased…”
The claim has sparked a lot of aggressive and angry replies from social media users.
Another Facebook account, News by Hour posted the video with a caption: “Breaking News – Nigerian Army previously reporting wike of attempting to bribe them with huge sums to compromise election.” The post also generated a lot of reactions from Nigerians.
Verification: An open-source investigation conducted by PRNigeria traced the footage back to four years ago in 2019. A video on Oak Tv having a 10 min 40 sec streaming came along with the caption, “Nigeria Army accuses Gov. Wike of trying to bribe Military men,” when the Army granted a press conference to address the discrepancies that happened during the 2019 election in Rivers State.
Following the press briefing, Plus TV Africa published a rejoinder with a caption, “Gov. Wike Denies Bribery Allegations by Army.”
More results reveal that the Tweet resurfaced online in March 2023 after the presidential and National Assembly elections.
Conclusion: findings by PRNigeria reveal that the video first appeared online four years ago, precisely in Feb 2019 and not in 2023 as claimed.
PRNigeria, therefore, concludes that the claim is MISLEADING
