Old video shows Nigerian vice president inspecting school construction, not meeting terrorists

After gunmen killed more than 200 people over the Christmas and New Year period in northern Nigeria, social media posts claimed that a video showed the country’s Vice President Kashim Shettima meeting with “terrorists” from the nomadic Fulani community. Users alleged that his association with them contributed to the recent attacks on Christian-majority states in the region. But AFP Fact Check found that the video in the claim is a combination of two old clips: the original versions showed Shettima inspecting construction sites for schools in Borno state during his eight-year tenure as governor.

An X account claimed that Shettima had met “Fulani terrorists” and blamed him for being partially responsible for attacks carried out on Christians.

A screenshot of the misleading post, taken on January 8, 2024

Published on January 2, 2024, the misleading post features a one-minute video showing Shettima, dressed in a striped babanriga robe, speaking to three men in Hausa. The footage then cuts to another clip showing the vice president wearing a mustard-coloured babanriga and chatting with another man in the presence of several others.

The account behind the post has a history of promoting content supporting Nigerian opposition leader Peter Obi and his Labour Party. It is often critical of the ruling All Progressives Congress and its leaders.

Deadly attacks

Nearly 200 people were killed when gunmen overran at least 20 rural villages in Plateau state in central Nigeria the weekend before Christmas (archived here).

These attacks led to nearly 20,000 people, mostly women and children, fleeing their homes around Bokkos and Barkin Ladi.

Bloody clashes fuelled by ethnic and religious tensions have long plagued the region.

In June 2018, at least 86 people were killed in Barkin Ladi. The deaths were blamed on suspected nomadic herders (archived here).

In recent years, armed gangs and kidnappers have been raiding local communities in Nigeria’s wider northern region, especially in the northwest and central Nigeria, looting and kidnapping residents for ransom.

Moreover, competition for natural resources — such as grazing areas — between nomadic herders and farmers, spurred by rapid population growth and climate pressures, has exacerbated social tensions and sparked violence.

While the country was still reeling from the Plateau Christmas attacks, armed gangs attacked districts in the Christian-dominated Kaduna state, northwest Nigeria, on January 5 (archived here).

On the same day, six people, including two Christian priests, were killed by jihadists in northeastern Yobe state (archived here).

Days before, jihadists ransacked two villages in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, killing at least 15 people on New Year’s Day (archived here).

Old videos from 2017

Using the InVID-WeVerify video verification tool, AFP Fact Check found that the video in the claim was obtained from two clips Shettima published on Facebook in June 2017 when he was the governor of Borno state.

In one clip published alongside several pictures on Facebook on June 27, 2023, Shettima is seen talking to three men with scarves on their heads (archived here). The same images seen between 1-30 seconds in the video in the claim could observed in the one Shettima posted.

The three-minute video showed that the encounter was followed by Shettima’s inspection of a school construction in the same location.

“I paid inspection visit to Lamisula Primary School where we are presently constructing new classrooms and fortunate enough, I met these well dressed Fulani men (sic),” Shettima wrote in the post.

He also made a jokey reference to the rivalry between his Kanuri tribe and the Fulanis.

An AFP translator confirmed that Shettima spoke Hausa in the clip and exchanged jokes with the three men about mirrors carried in their pockets. He also asked the three men he identified as Fulani if they were Nigerians or Malians.

The images seen 31 seconds into the video in the claim are from a four-minute footage Shettima published on Facebook more than six years ago, on June 30, 2017 (archived here). In this version, Shettima also spoke Hausa to a man he identified as Fulani.

According to an AFP translator, Shettima joked about the man’s braided hair, inquired about the number of wives he had, and asked if he was Nigerian.

Shettima then inspected the nearby building under construction.

“We are constructing a 60 classroom new school at Bolori Layout in Maiduguri,” part of the caption to the post reads.

He also shared three more similar videos (here, here and here) in July 2017.

Fulani extremists and terrorism

Nigeria is battling a decades-long insurgency that has claimed more than 40,000 lives and displaced over a million people (archived here).

Image grab from an AFPTV video taken in Maiyanga village, in Bokkos local government, on December 27, 2023, shows families burying in a mass grave their relatives killed in deadly attacks conducted by armed groups ( AFPTV / KIM MASARA)

Beyond the jihadist threat, the country is also plagued by deadly clashes between farmers and herders.

The herders, mostly of nomadic Fulani stock, have been blamed for deadly attacks on rural communities in parts of north central and southwest Nigeria.

“Certain deaths within the ongoing conflict between pastoralists and the nomadic Fulani have been categorised as terrorism and attributed to extremist elements within the Fulani,” said the 2019 Global Terrorism Index (GTI) (archived here).