On January 24, 2023, a Twitter handle posted a video claiming that Bola Tinubu, the Presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress, called “the Lagos he built refuse dump”.
The video which has over 50,000 views and 3,000 likes as of the time of this report was shared with the caption: “Bola Tinubu calls the Lagos he built ‘Refuse Dump’ Omo if you don’t vote LP na your wahala be that o”
Verification
To verify the authenticity of the video and the claim by the user, we traced the video to the video-sharing social media app, TikTok.
We found that the video, shared on TikTok, had been seen more than 800,000 times as of January 27, 2023.
In this viral video, Tinubu is heard saying: “I am a thinker and a doer, evident here Lagos, this is a refuse dump”.
While watching the video, we observed that it had a Channels TV logo, hence it became obvious that it was a Channels TV publication.
Combing through Channels TV on YouTube we found the original video.
The video was made on December 22, 2022, when the APC candidate had a meeting with young entrepreneurs in Victoria Island, Lagos. It was called “Business lunch with Asiwaju”.
The meeting, which was a gathering of individuals from various walks of life, also saw an interactive session where the APC presidential candidate was asked questions on his manifesto and requested to clarify his vision and mission when he gets elected.
While giving his speech, the APC candidate made a statement that matches the one posted on Twitter and Tiktok but Tinubu was not referring to the entire Lagos.
The video was cut to pick Tinubu’s words out of context. Three minutes and 50 seconds into the video, Tinubu is seen saying the site of the event was previously a refuse dump.
“I’m a thinker and a doer, evident here in Lagos,” he said, adding that “this is a refuse dump, that is, this investment of great value, this building, this site.”
We checked and found that the event was held at The Wings, Victoria Island, Lagos.
The Wings is located at 17a Ozumba Mbadiwe Avenue, one of the places referred to as a Coastal dumpsite in the early 2000s. In this paper published in the Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management, off Ozumba Mbadiwe was referred to as one of the largest coastal dumpsites in Lagos.
Verdict
The claim is false and misleading. Bola Tinubu did not refer to Lagos as a dump site. The longer version of the video shows that he was referring to the building where the business lunch was held, which was previously regarded as a coastal dumpsite.
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