SPECIAL REPORT: How disinformation fueled ethnic tensions in Kaduna

It was supposed to be a night of celebration and praise for the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, son of Abdullahi. Tudun Biri, a community in the Igabi Local Government Area (LGA) of Kaduna State, was busy on the night of 3 December 2023, as Muslim worshipers converged on an open field for the birth anniversary of the prophet.

The procession had just begun around 10 p.m., and the recitation of the Diwani, a collection of poetic encomium, filled the air. At intervals, the master of ceremony, Abdullahi Musa, introduced guests, and people sprayed the reciters with naira notes.

Far above the worshipers, a Nigerian military drone was hovering around the community, getting ready to shell marauding ‘bandits’ terrorising the northwestern part of the country. A loud bang suddenly shook the ground, and the speakers went silent. As the drone spat out deadly shells, they fell directly on the worshippers, gruesomely mangling dozens and injuring several others.

From a distance, Saminu Usman flashed his torch to know what had just happened and saw the lifeless bodies of men, women and children who, a few seconds earlier, were chanting songs of praise in the Islamic way.

“He (Mr Musa) had just introduced the third guest when it happened,” Saminu Usman narrated to PREMIUM TIMES one Saturday in July.

Saminu Usman lost three children to the military airstrike in Tudun Biri on 3 December 2023.

While some fled, others, including Mr Usman, tried to save those writhing in pain. They marched on the dead, rushing to save the living and convey them to a nearby hospital. As residents moved closer to save the breathing victims, the hovering drone shelled again, killing many of the civilian residents on a rescue mission.

Terror struck in Tundun Biri, as everywhere first fell silent before agonising wails from neighbours filled the atmosphere.

“We started sorting the corpses from severed body parts in the morning,” Mr Usman said, adding that the severed body parts filled more than three sacks the next morning when they evacuated the bodies.

Mr Usman said he lost three children, one grandchild and two daughters-in-law.

Costly mistake

The horror that struck Tudun Biri was the 17th such airstrike by the Nigerian military that killed civilians. The strikes have caused over 400 civilian casualties since 2014. More than 120 people died from the December 2023 incident, according to Amnesty International Nigeria. Many others were injured.

The next day, Samuel Aruwan, the Commissioner for Internal Security in Kaduna State, announced that the Nigerian Army had claimed responsibility for the drone attack.

The army spokesperson, Onyema Nwachukwu, a brigadier general, explained days later that soldiers were carrying out “aerial patrols when they observed a group of people and wrongly analysed and misinterpreted their pattern of activities to be similar to that of the bandits.”

However, the tragic incident set in motion a disinformation campaign targeting the General Officer Commanding 1 Division Nigerian Army, Valentine Okoro, an Igbo man. The information manipulation on social media provoked threats of terror on members of the Igbo ethnic group residing in the state.

A PREMIUM TIMES analysis of hundreds of social media posts reveals that numerous accounts on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) spread false narratives, igniting a barrage of hate speeches against ethnic and religious groups.

X user, @Im_Buhari_Jnr, inciting Nigerians against Mr Okoro, a major general

In one post viewed more than a million times on X, a user accused Mr Okoro, a major general, of orchestrating the killings in Tudun Biri, suggesting that the worshipers were massacred because of their Hausa-Fulani ethnic and Islamic affiliations.

“Horror,” the post, accompanied by the portrait of the major general, reads. “The face of a person responsible for the killing of more than 120 Muslim worshippers in Kaduna last night.”

More than a thousand others shared the posts, gathering over 2,000 comments. When some X users drew the poster’s attention to the possibility of his conclusion being erroneous, he doubled down. “This is more than a mistake,” he responded to one person in the same thread.

It didn’t take long before other social media users who didn’t verify the claims started disparaging Mr Okoro, who is both Igbo and Christian, a contrast to the Muslims killed in the drone attack.

PREMIUM TIMES found that other social media users copied and shared the post’s content across different platforms.

On Facebook, for instance, one Jafar Afuwa repeated the misleading claim on a public forum with more than 144,000 members —this time in the Hausa language, reaching more local audiences.

“This is the cursed person that killed our brothers and sisters celebrating the Maulud in Kaduna,” he posted, also attaching Mr Okoro’s picture. More than 130 people commented on the post, cursing the army officer as 45 others shared it on their platforms.

Other social media pages including a popular blog, RNC Hausa, repeated the claims, spreading it further.

“He led the massacre of our over 120 Muslim brothers and sisters in Tudun Biri in Kaduna,” another post reads in Hausa, also accompanied by Mr Okoro’s photograph. The comment section of the post was filled with curses against Mr Okoro.

None of the posters provided any evidence for their claims, which are, of course, false.

Nurudeen Akewushola, a Nigerian fact-checker working at the FactCheckHub, an initiative of the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), said the low level of media literacy among Nigerian social media users and people’s existing biases were behind the spreading of such misinformation.

It gets worse because the disinformation actors play on existing biases, which cloud people’s judgement, said Mr Akewushola, who has fact-checked hundreds of such claims.

“Online disinformation campaigns like this can degenerate into real-world violence because the actors play on deeply rooted biases and historical grievances nurtured by people,” he added.

Fear grips Igbos in Kaduna

Ejike Mboya’s phone would not stop ringing in the days that followed.

Mr Mboya, an Igbo leader in Kaduna State, said he was not social media savvy and had not seen the false information spreading online. However, his kinsmen who saw some of the posts were afraid of a reprisal attack and many stayed away from the public and didn’t go to the market for days.

“They keep calling me on the phone that they heard rumours that there would be an attack on the Igbos because of the bombing that happened in Tudun Biri,” he told PREMIUM TIMES in Kaduna.

“They said it was an intentional act by the GOC. But I tried to explain to my people that there’s nothing like that.”

Ejike Mmoya calmed the tension among fellow Igbos in Kaduna

Mr Mboya said it took an emergency meeting to calm his people. He added that the leadership of the Igbo community also cautioned members against engaging in altercation with anyone, especially about the incident.

“There was a very big tension,” he said. “We try as much as we can to bring our people together, cautioning them not to argue with anybody.”

Back in Tudun Biri, residents were oblivious to the social media posts. Mr Saminu said he was unaware of the posts or the rumours that scared many Igbos in Kaduna.

“I never heard of anything like that,” he said when asked about some specific posts.

Social media platforms’ complicity

“So many examples have shown us that whatever we say online can have a lasting effect offline,” said Silas Jonathan, who leads the Digital Technology Artificial Intelligence and Information Disorder Analysis Centre (DAIDAC) team at the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID).

Mr Jonathan said the complacency of social media platforms in taking down such posts makes them complicit. “But then you have to understand that social media platforms are business… posts or comments that have much interaction bring more profits (to them),” he said, explaining that there’s a context and understanding of cultural settings. He noted, however, that there has been growth in that aspect too.

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, says it doesn’t support hate speech on its platforms. In its community standards, it also stresses that it “prohibits the usage of slurs that are used to attack people based on their protected characteristics.”

According to data from Statista, the social media platform removed over 22 million posts categorised as hate speech from October 2023 to June 2024.

In July, the platform expanded its policy to remove more ‘anti-semitic’ hate speeches. “We don’t allow people to attack others on our platforms based on their protected characteristics, such as their nationality, race or religion,” the platform said.

A Meta spokesperson told PREMIUM TIMES via email that their social media platforms have “strict rules against hate speech, and we remove this type of content when we become aware of it via a combination of technology and reports from our users.”

However, the posts attempting to stir ethnic tension in Nigeria remained on the platform for over eight months. Facebook finally deleted them in September after PREMIUM TIMES contacted the social media company, asking if the posts qualify as hate speech per its policies.

“We know that our systems are not always perfect, which is why we continue to invest in teams and technology to be able to tackle harmful content more effectively,” the spokesperson added in the email to PREMIUM TIMES in September.

Social media hate speech continues

Nigeria has a long history of ethnic and religious polarisation, and the Kaduna incident was not the first time online disinformation would be used to spread fear and heighten tension.

In 2018, gory images were shared on Facebook with social media users accusing some Fulanis of killing Berom people in Plateau State. The photos, which turned out to be unrelated to the violence in the state, ultimately fueled the crisis as angry Berom youths mounted roadblocks and killed Fulanis in retaliation.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian social media space has seen a dramatic increase in ethnic hate speeches, especially since the last general election.

In August, a social media account surfaced on X, Lagospedia, spreading anti-Igbo rhetoric and creating tension. The account, which has now vanished, famously called for a protest for members of the Igbo ethnic group to leave Lagos State. To douse the tension, the Lagos State government disowned the post and its messages, describing it as divisive.

More recently, a Canada-based Nigerian woman also made the news when she openly called for the killing of Yoruba and Benin people on live Tik-Tok sessions. The woman, identified as Amaka Sunnberger, claimed her comment was in response to the “hate” against Igbos.

The Ohanaeze Ndigbo, an Igbo socio-cultural group, condemned the comments, accusing her of attempts to create ethnic mistrust.

“The aim behind all these false narratives goes beyond just online deception; it is to fuel ethnic tensions, incite violence, and deepen divisions within our society,” Mr Akewushola added.

A study by a group of Nigerian academics which looked into the implications of fake news on national security submitted that ‘fake news’ is fueling electoral violence and ethno-religious conflicts.

“The devastating implications of circulating such fake news is that it causes panic and is capable of triggering violence across ethnic and religious divides, thereby endangering national security,” the researchers concluded.

Attempt to regulate social media, prosecute hate speech

The Nigerian government has made multiple attempts to enact laws that regulate social media and prosecute hate speech. However, it has faced serious pushback from citizens over fears that the law would be used to target journalists and activists.

In 2019, Mohammed Musa, a senator representing the Niger East Senatorial District, introduced a bill to regulate the use of social media in Nigeria. The bill, aimed at curbing fake news online, proposes a two-year jail term or a N2 million fine for individuals guilty of making false statements.

In the same year, another senator, Aliyu Abdullahi, at the time representing Niger North Senatorial District, proposed a bill to establish a commission to investigate and prosecute hate speech offenders.

Earlier in 2015, another senator, Bala Ibn Na’allah, then representing Kebbi South Senatorial district, proposed a bill containing similar clauses.

Mr Jonathan, the researcher at DAIDAC, stated that social media companies need to invest more in understanding their users’ contexts and cultures to improve their algorithms’ ability to detect harmful speeches.

READ ALSO: SPECIAL REPORT: Post-subsidies removal hardships take toll on Abuja informal economy operators

“Social media companies are a business, and if it’s a business, they should have the expenditure to manage and create policies that fit their users, no matter where the context or the country is,” he said.

He also advocated for a collaborative approach among social media companies, journalists, civil society organisations and policymakers to address the challenge.

This reporting was completed with the support of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development and the Open Society Foundations