A popular fake news merchant and propagandist, Mahdi Shehu from Northern Nigeria in trying to prove the baseless claims by the military dictator of Niger Republic accusing Nigeria of allowing France to establish a military base shared a video apparently shot in 2013 showing Nigerian and French troops offloading supplies on his X handle.
The video went viral with many believing it to be true. However, upon a reverse search of the video on the internet, Podium Reporters discovered that the video has been in circulation online since 2013.
The video is a news report by the Associated Press (AP) which covered the arrival of troops from Nigeria, Benin Republic and Togo who came into Mali as part of a military mission from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to assist in a peacekeeping operation in the region. The troops had arrived at the Senou International Airport in Bamako, Mali – one of the countries where the peacekeeping mission was expected to operate.
In the video, Nigerian troops were seen offloading bags of supplies from a military plane and loading same into trucks, while French soldiers offloaded an aircraft from a cargo plane.
The controversial Propagandist, Mahdi Shehu hours later deleted the video post but neither apologised nor clarified his earlier false post.
