On March 1, 2023, a Twitter user accused Kashim Shettima, the Nigeria Vice President-elect and running mate to Bola Tinubu of being on the United States’ Watchlist for terrorism.
The Twitter user said, “Vice President-Elect is on US Watchlist for Terrorism. Omo”. Barely four hours after he tweeted, the tweet has garnered over 72,000 views.
Similar posts have also been shared on other social media platforms, including Facebook.
Claim: Is Kashim Shettima on the US watchlist for terrorism?
Verification
Since the 9/11 terrorist attack on America, the US Government has merged all terrorist watchlists into a single Terrorist Screening Center (TSC). The CDD Election War Room searched through this database and other publicly available watchlists for terrorists. However, none of them has the details of the vice president-elect, Kashim Shettima.
However, the database that houses all the people on the watchlist is not publicly available to the public. The FBI stated that “for security reasons, the TSC does not confirm anyone’s status on the watchlist”.
Furthermore, in 2015, the US government indicted the Borno state government led by Kashim Shettima for recruiting children into the army.
The children were recruited to fight the Boko haram insurgency ravaging the state during that period. Investigations showed that it was only an indictment with no issue of “watchlist” or sanction.
The US terror watch list hosted on TSC Database is said to have more than a million names, which are continuously updated and shared within the intelligence community. The names on it are collated from a larger list known as Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE).
According to the US National Counterterrorism Centre, here is the criteria for getting on the list.
Verdict:
While the Borno state government was indicted by the US for actively supporting the recruitment of child soldiers, there is no evidence to support the claim that Kashim Shettima is on the US watchlist for terrorism.