Claim:

A news headline from  Igbretvnews and shared by Youth Democratic Party of Nigeria (YDPN) on Facebook, claims that 20 Nigerian Soldiers on a Mission to Niger killed by bandits. A confusion ensued as the platform used the headline as a misleading bait.
 

Verdict:

Full Story

 
On the 15th August 2023, a Facebook user Ediomo Friday published a post on Political Facebook page: YOUTH DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF NIGERIA (NDYN). The post which at press time had gained 502 comments, 1.5k reactions by different Facebook users.

The post which has received a lot of reactions is generating different confusing views in the public space. Seun Olorunpomi was one of those who reacted saying the post was fake why others claimed it was true. See the screenshots below.

Other users also expressed their confusion since the post did not differentiate between “Niger” as a state and “Niger” as a country.

The general confusion which the headline of the post generated prompted us to dig into the matter. We chose to check if the incident occurred within the context of “Niger” as a state in Nigeria or as a country, or whether or not the incident happened at all. We verified it.

 
Verification: 

We deployed the Google lens to check the veracity of the above claim. A post propped up published by the DailyTrust on 15th August, 2023. It was a news report on an attack on Nigerian soldiers along the Zungeru -Tegina Road in Niger State late Sunday night.

The military source, who spoke to Daily Trust on Monday, put the number of the slain soldiers at 20. In the same report another source revealed that the bandits who were crossing the Zungeru-Tegina Road with a large number of cattle around Kundu village in Rafi Local Government Area “when they came in contact with the military personnel drafted to the area and began an exchange of fire, leading to the death of the soldiers.”

 
Corroborating the findings above,  TheGuardian on 14th August, 2023, published that at least 26 members of the Nigerian security forces were killed and eight wounded in an ambush by gunmen in central Nigeria late Sunday.

 
It was reported that two military officers confirmed that they  lost 23 soldiers, including three officers, and three Civilians JTF (vigilantes) in the encounter while eight soldiers were injured,” “a serious fight” along the Zungeru-Tegina highway.

 
On a further check, we came across Igberetvnews with a post that has a similar headline with the claim being checked.  According to the television platform, at least 21 military personnel including senior officers were reportedly killed by the suspected bandits at Kundu via Zungeru in the Wushishi Local Government Area (LGA) of Niger state.

 
It was gathered that 13 of them were killed in an encounter on Sunday, while eight others were killed on Monday in an ambush in which a captain and a major were reportedly involved.

 
According to the report, the security operatives were trying to block the Kundu route of the criminals who were about to cross with some rustled cattle when they were ambushed, leading to the casualties including five vigilantes who were injured with bullets.

 
Conclusion:
Pieces of evidence from DailyTrust, The Guardian and igberetvnews showed that the killings of the Nigerian actually happened in Niger State and not Niger Republic, putting the confusion in the headline of Igbretvnews to rest. The trending news about Niger Republic also added to the confusion and the television platform apparently leveraged the headline as a click bait. Hence the headline was leading.