A news report is circulating on social media with the headline, “195 fear dead, As Appeal Court Affirms Labour Party Candidate As Winner Of House Of Reps Seat”. The report, retrieved from the instant messaging platform, WhatsApp, was published by a news blog known as Famous Reporters on November 2, 2023.
Claim: 195 feared dead as Appeal court affirms LP candidate as winner of House of Reps seat
Verification
CDD War Room checked the report, archived here, to evaluate the content and confirm its authenticity. It was found that the report contains two pieces of news.
The first news piece was about the Nigeria Court of Appeal’s ruling affirming Jesse Okay-Joe Onuakalusi of the Labour Party, as the duly elected House of Representatives member for Constituency II Oshodi-Isolo, Lagos State.
The report states, “The court, sitting in Lagos State in a unanimous ruling by its three-member panel on Thursday, November 2, upheld Onuakalusi’s victory at the polls.”
This was also corroborated by multiple media reports as can be seen here and here.
The second news piece was about a statement reportedly made by the Hamas government in Gaza that 195 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Jabalia refugee camp in the Palestinian territory. This was corroborated by multiple credible reports as can be seen here, here, here, and here. We found the headline to be misleading as the two developments reported in the news story, were unrelated.
Verdict: MISLEADING
We can confirm that contrary to the headline, the 195 people reportedly feared dead during the ongoing Hamas-Isreal war, had no connection with the Nigeria Court of Appeal’s ruling upholding the election victory of LP’s Federal House of Representatives candidate in Lagos State.
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