Four-minutes, Seventeen seconds viral video released on YouTube by Gido24 TV claimed that Aisha Buhari, the wife of Nigeria’s President, has ordered the burning of the office of Abba Kyari, the president’s chief of staff.
The video widely shared on WhatsApp with over 6,500 views as at 11.15 pm March 30, 2020, claimed the first lady gave the directive to prevent the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) which Kyari tested positive to.
The video – a background narration – which failed to show neither anyone’s face nor the person speaking was published on March 26, 2020, by the channel claimed that after coming back from Germany, Kyari was in his office where he had touched many things.
It was further stated in the video that the directive by Aisha would help prevent the spread of the deadly virus to others within the office and the presidential villa at large.
Continuing in the video, the speaker who communicated in Hausa said Aisha directed that the office must be burnt with immediate effect as the disease has no cure and countries all over the world were struggling to contain it.
The video ended requesting opinions of Nigerians on the first lady’s decision.
But in an investigation launched by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) fact-checkers found that no source was linked to the story.
Fact-checks also revealed that location and time the first lady gave the directive was not specified and that the video was purely an audio narration with use of pictures of Aisha Buhari, Zahra Buhari, Abba Kyari, Kemi Adeosun and fire image.
Also, a few seconds after it started, the video promised viewers that it will show the office was burnt but it never did while strongly encouraging viewers to subscribe to the Youtube channel.
CDD fact-checkers observed that the channel used the false story to generate viewership for monetary gains from the video channel.
The CDD claim is FALSE! CDD urges Nigerians to disregard the claim and stop viewing or sharing on all platforms.
