A few days after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the APC candidate, Bola Tinubu as the winner of the 2023 presidential election, there has been an uproar that the poll was not free and fair.
The PDP and Labour Party claimed that the election was rigged by the APC therefore, Bola Tinubu, should not be the president-elect. Litigation has started and protests are ongoing as of March 6, 2023.
Subsequently, a video started going viral on WhatsApp alleging that Peter Obi and Labour Party supporters had plans to hack the INEC server.
The video also shows an audio-visual purporting to show Atiku Abubakar, his running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa, and the governor of Sokoto state, Aminu Tambuwal, discussing how to rig the election.
CDD Election War Room checked the viral video and here is waht we found:
VERIFICATIONS:
CDD Election War Room found the original version of the alleged video claiming Peter Obi was planning to hack the INEC server.
The video was made during a town hall meeting he had with Nigerians in Toronto Canada in August 2022.
In the video, an Obi supporter was telling him to name his needs and assuring the Labour Party candidate that he would be supported financially to win the election.
“…if it’s tomorrow when you get to California or when you’re talking to the mayor of Colombia, you see one or two things, send us and say, ‘can your app do this? Do we have this?’ So that, because you see, we have to start thinking of things that it is not just money. Tinubu can go and do anything he likes. Atiku. I’m not saying this to discourage these men. In their own capacity, they’ve done well, but this is not their time.
“He says this is his turn. It is our time. So all I’m asking you, my question to you is just this: As you go on your journey, think of technology, because this young people, this is the language they understand, it is not just about Twitter and the rest, if you can think of those things then let us know and we will imbibe it and we will win this election for you.”
The part of the man’s statement in the video that was doctored was the last part where he said, “we will win this election for you”. The “win” was jumbled up to make him sound like he said, “we will rig” this election for you”.
To verify the part of Atiku and his cohort, on February 24, 2023, the CDD Election War Room discovered and verified a WhatsApp audio recording.
Atiku, Okowa, and the governor of Sokoto state, Aminu Tambuwal, are purportedly heard discussing ways to work with the INEC to rig the elections in the tape, according to individuals who shared the voice note.
The viral audio was discovered to be fake by CDD Election War Room after running it through Deepware, an artificial intelligence tool made to detect deepfake videos or, simply, any fake content in the areas of visual and audio communication.
It is an amalgam of different audio files that falsely combine the voices of the people in question into one seamless conversation in order to spread a false narrative.
Verdict
Following the verifications carried out, we found the real video of the alleged “rigging” video, CDD Election War Room can confirm that the alleged video was doctored to misinform the public.
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