An influencer on X with over 50,000 followers, @AndyjnrUmaru, on Friday morning posted that the Kaduna police had rescued over 300 people in a house located in Rigasa community, Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna state, where the occupants were tortured and chained.
The X user wrote:
BREAKING News!!!Homosexual Dems: Police Rescue over 300 People chained in A House In Kaduna. -They teach us Koran and abuse us homosexually. A house containing over three hundred people chained in their arms and legs has been discovered by police in Kaduna State. thread ššš pic.twitter.com/7NDjg1KXSWā AndyJnr Ā° Umaru īØ (@AndyjnrUmaru) September 27, 2024
āHomosexual Dems: Police rescue over 300 people chained in a house in Kaduna,ā the post read in part. āThey teach us the Koran and abuse us homosexually. A house containing over three hundred people chained by their arms and legs has been discovered in Kaduna State.ā
The X influencer also claimed that the occupants of the house were being used, dehumanised and tortured, while the children amongst them were subjected to homosexuality.
CLAIM: That over 300 people were recently rescued from a house in Rigasa, a community in Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna, where inmates were dehumanised and tortured.
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VERIFICATION: FIJ conducted a simple Google search with the keywords in the post to verify the claim. Google revealed several news reports published in 2019 by Premium Times, The Cable, Channels Television and others about the Kaduna police rescuing 300 people from a house they were tortured in.
Results of the Google search.
Some of the headlines read: āChained persons freed as police ārescue 300ā at religious centre in Kadunaā, āPolice rescue over 300 children, others from ātorture houseā in Kadunaā and āModern Slavery: Police Rescue 300 āTorturedā Persons In Kaduna.ā
All the reports contained the exact contents as the post made by the X user on Friday. FIJ also discovered that the X user had copied some statements from The Cableās reports on the issue verbatim, and posted them as his.
The post by @AndyjnrUmaru.
The Cableās report on the issue
On Friday morning, FIJ called Mansir Hassan, the Kaduna Police PRO, to inquire if the event was recent.
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When FIJ narrated the event to the Kaduna PPRO, he said he had heard no information of such lately.
āI have no information about that rescue operation,ā Hassan told FIJ.
VERDICT: The claim that police rescued over 300 people in a house in Rigasa, Kaduna, where the occupants were tortured and dehumanised is not a recent or breaking news, as the X user claimed.
The event happened in 2019 and the X user posted it on Friday morning for engagements.
The post FACT CHECK: X Influencer Recycles 5-Year-Old News of Police Rescuing 300 Torture Victims in Kaduna appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.