Verdict: Misleading

Full Story:

There were reported cases of violence trailing the Governorship and Houses of Assembly elections in some parts of the country. In Lagos, there were reported ethnic attacks specifically targeted at the Igbos especially after the announcement of the presidential results, won in Lagos by the Candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi. Despite the widespread of such attacks shown on some major television networks, Mr. Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate of the Africa Action Congress (AAC), posted a tweet, claiming that not a single person was arrested in Lagos for election-related offences.

Here’s the screenshot of the tweet below:

This tweet has gathered over one million views, over twenty thousand likes and about ten thousand retweets. The volume of engagement with the tweet shows the level of followership the tweeter user commands and thus we find it essential to verify the claims.

Verification: A quick Google search threw up several news headlines that showed evidence of the arrest of tens of several people in connection to electoral offences during the period of the gubernatorial and house of assembly elections on Saturday 18th March 2023. Some media reports of police arrests have been published here,  here and here.

For further verification, our researcher also sent an SMS to the Lagos State police PRO, Benjamin Hundeyin, requesting a reaction to the said tweet. The PRO then replied, through an SMS, with a link to an article published by the News Agency of Nigeria in The Guardian on Sunday, March 19, 2023, with the headline “Election: Police arrest 17 suspects in Lagos”.

The news report has it that “the police command in Lagos State says 17 persons, including a woman were arrested during the governorship and House Assembly elections in the state for various offences…the command’s Police Public Relations Officer, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed the arrest to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday.”

Screenshot of Hundeyin’s SMS

Similarly, there was a recent media report here indicating a public parade of suspects of electoral offenders in Lagos, contrary to Mr Sowore’s claims that no one has been arrested in Lagos or elsewhere in Nigeria for electoral violence or other offences.

Conclusion: Going by the several news reports of police arrests and subsequent parades of alleged electoral offenders in Lagos and elsewhere in Nigeria, coupled with the Lagos State PPRO’s confirmation to that effect, it is hereby concluded that Omoyele Sowore’s claims are misleading as they are not true.