APC spokesman posts fake pictures to show party’s campaign rally

Two images shared by Joe Igbokwe, the Lagos State All Progressives Congress publicity secretary, to show a massive turnout at the party’s campaign rally in Uyo are fake and deceptive.

APC launched its 2019 presidential campaign at the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium, Uyo, Akwa Ibom on Friday.

Igbokwe, in a bid to show off the massive turnout at the campaign, uploaded some pictures showing massive crowd at a stadium on his Facebook wall on Friday with the caption “SOUTH SOUTH MAKES HISTORY. I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS”.

Having reverse-searched the images in the post, which had geared 406 shares as at report time, The Guardian can report that the two images are not only phoney but have also been miscontextualised as one of the pictures does not relate to a political rally or even Nigeria.

Our findings showed that the first image was taken on August 29, 2007, showing a Spanish La Liga club, Barcelona, stadium.

The second picture shared by Igbokwe, the side cover of the stadium is rectangular while that of the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium is oval-shaped.

Also, the tent in the middle is not the same with the ones in the pictures shared by the party on its social media pages and also ostensibly for security reasons there was no huge crowd at the back of the tent used for the podium whereas Igbokwe’s image showed massive crowd behind the podium.

The Guardian also observed that the crowd present on the actual pitch of the Uyo stadium was not close to that shared by the spokesman. Moreover, the decor of the podium at Uyo Stadium is different from the one shared by Igbokwe.

This is not the first time the spokespersons of the party will be posting images misrepresentative of facts.

Earlier this month, Social media aide to Nigerian President, Lauretta Onochie, shared a fake image to attack Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the opposition People’s Democratic Party.

In September, she had to apologise cheekily after she was confronted that an image she posted of the Nasarawa-Jos Road was a random image from the internet.