A broadcast message has gone viral across social media, especially WhatsApp with the heading “SSS office Abuja BREAKING NEWS! Security alert!!” According to the viral message allegedly originating from the State Security Service (SSS) also known as the Department of State Service (DSS), there is a “mass arrival of BOKO HARAM Fighters to Southern / Northern central Nigeria, especially to LAGOS/ILORIN and RIVERS. Attached to the viral message is the “police control numbers of each state in Nigeria” comprising of numbers distributed across all the 36 states.
Claim: Did the SSS issue this Security Alert?
Verification:
The CDD War Room reached out to the Department of State Service (DSS) to verify the authenticity of the viral broadcast message. We were informed that the viral message did not emanate from the Department of State Service (DSS)/ State Security Service (SSS) and that citizens “disregard the message, that’s complete fake news.”
We took a step further by contacting the numbers attached to the broadcast message. We found that the telephone numbers are attached to the various state’s Police Control Room and the telephone numbers were copied from a previously circulated broadcast message for people to reach the police command across the states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
CDD War Room also found some inconsistencies in the content of the viral message. For instance a sentence read “This is y military patrol teams has been rooled out to mount strategic points in d states and cities mentioned Pls pass on to other friends & family members, especially those residing in PH, ilorin and Lagos.” In this sentence, some words like “y” “d” “pls” “PH” were abbreviated, while words like “rooled” is spelt wrongly.
Verdict: FALSE
The CDD War Room found that the viral message is fake and did not originate from the SSS/DSS. We found that the telephone numbers attached to the broadcast message belongs to the 36 states’ Police Control Room and were copied from a previously circulated broadcast message.
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