Ademola Adeleke, governor of Osun state, South-West, during a virtual interview with Channels TV last weekend, claimed that he introduced fact-checking in Nigeria.
Adeleke made this claim while he was reacting to the latest Appeal Court ruling which upheld his victory at the Osun gubernatorial election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on July 16, 2022.
Adeleke ran on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to contest against Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who was seeking re-election as the governor of the state at the time.
Oyetola and the APC contested the outcome of the polls at the Osun governorship election tribunal, where Adeleke’s victory was overturned.
The case was further taken to the Appeal Court in Abuja, where it was however ruled that Adeleke remained the winner of the July 16 polls as declared by INEC.
Speaking on the latest development, Adeleke said he was confident about the support of the people of Osun as his administration was already fulfilling the promises made.
He said, “You are familiar with Osun state. You are a journalist, come down or send your correspondents. Let them do opinion sampling, and fact check. I introduced the fact check everybody is using now, they are not paying me. I introduced fact check, that everything you say, you go and fact-check it.”
Adeleke, a former senator, had earlier urged Nigerians to fact-check what was being said during a governorship debate involving him and four other leading candidates in the 2022 Osun race.
He also claimed during the debate, held on July 10, 2022, that he “introduced fact check”.
Claim: Ademola Adeleke said he introduced ‘fact-check’ in Nigeria.
Verification
CDD Election War Room can confirm that the claim by Adeleke is false.
Checks revealed that fact-checking already existed in the country even before Adeleke’s first attempt to become the governor of Osun state in 2018.
In 2016, Africa’s first independent fact-checking organisation, Africa Check, launched a regional office in Nigeria as part of its goal to improve the quality of information across the continent.
Similarly, the Centre for Journalism, Innovation, and Development (CJID), formerly Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), initiated Nigeria’s first indigenous verification and fact-checking platform, Dubawa, in 2018.
Following its creation, Dubawa began to train Nigerian journalists on fact-checking and also produced elections-related fact-checks during the 2019 general elections.
Also, The Cable ran the first live fact check of a presidential debate in Nigeria. Mayowa Tijani, an award-winning fact checker, led the team in 2018.
TheCable and Premium Times have fact-checks that date back as early as 2015, 2016 — years before Adeleke got his seat in the Senate.
Verdict
The claim by Ademola Adeleke that he introduced fact-checking in Nigeria, is false; The CDD Election War Room can confirm that fact-checking already existed in the country before Adeleke’s first attempt to contest the governorship seat in Osun state.
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