FACT CHECK: Were Chadians with PVCs arrested at Nigerian border as Charly Boy claimed?

A viral post on social media claims that 100 trucks conveying over 1 million Chadians to Kaduna were arrested ahead of the presidential elections.

On Thursday, Charles Oputa, also known as Charly Boy shared the post via his verified Instagram handle, @AreaFada1, to his 192k followers.

In the post, the popular songwriter claimed that former President Olusegun Obasanjo had intercepted 1 million Chadians from entering Nigeria to Kaduna to vote. 

Oputa added in the post that the Chadians had permanent voters card (PVC).

“Obasanjo Blocked 100 Trucks Containers Carrying Nearly 1Million Chadians From Entering Nigeria To Kaduna To Vote APC,” the post reads. 

“Obasanjo received a call from a junior immigration officer (name withheld) that unknown 100 trucks carrying over 1 million Chadians got access to the Nigeria border and were heading to Kaduna.

“Obasanjo responded immediately around 2 pm in the afternoon, Obasanjo called the immigration boss but no response from him, Obasanjo asked his personal security officials to block all the roads leading to Kaduna and finally, the trucks were captured.

“The trucks with no plate number have nearly 1 million Chadians all with Nigeria PVC when they were interrogated, they pretend not to hear English, Obasanjo ordered that the PVC be collected and destroyed immediately.

“Chad President was phoned immediately by Obasanjo and he denied knowing about such incidents, since there was no place to keep such a multitude of people, the trucks were ordered to turn back to Chad.”

On Instagram, the post attracted over 9,925 likes and 1,635 comments as at the time of this report. 

Various news platforms and blogs also shared the post. 

VERIFICATION 

Nigeria shares a border with Cameroon to the east, to the west with Chad, and to the west, is bound by Benin. Niger is to the north of Nigeria while the northeast of Nigeria is bordered by Lake Chad, according to World Atlas. 

Comparing the borders, the one between Nigeria and Chad is the shortest, it runs for 54 miles as it is easier linked to Borno state. 

According to the post which claims that 100 trucks were filled with nearly one million Chadians, doing the maths would imply that about 10,000 persons occupied each truck. 

From the pictures posted with the Instagram post, none of the trucks seems to have the capacity to convey 10,000 individuals.

TheCable also subjected one of the pictures to Google reverse image search which showed that the image is old. One of the pictures has been online far back as 2020.

To confirm the arrest, TheCable also contacted Kaduna’s police command. Mohammad Jalige, the spokesperson of the command, denied the incident.

He said the post was false as the police would have released an official statement if such ever happened. 

“This is not true. We are not aware of anything like that. It doesn’t even make sense. The last time 15 people were arrested, it was all over the news not to talk of 1 million, ” he said. 

VERDICT 

The viral post by the popular entertainer, Charly Boy is false.