A trending 30-second video has been used on X and TikTok to claim that shops owned by Igbo traders in Ghana, Nigeria’s West African neighbour, are being targeted and destroyed by Ghanaians.
This claim follows protests by youths against the activities of an Igbo king and his followers in Ghana.
The well-engaged video clip was shared on X by a random X account named Arewa Lukuruwa. “Ghanaians now destroying Igbo Shops,” the post reads. Lukuruwa included a broken heart emoji and the Nigerian flag.
In the video, a group of young men were seen tearing down shops with planks and bare hands. They were surrounded by a large crowd, and someone also carried a placard which briefly appeared in the video.
The video was captioned, “Ghana have started destroying Nigerian property in their country.”
Lukurawa shared this video on Monday at 10:52 pm and it had got more than 2,200 likes, 612 reposts, 643 comments and 399 bookmarks at press time.
The post incited several inflammatory comments, fanning the embers of Nigeria’s ethnic divide.
One of them, by Conversative Yoruba, reads, “Problems caused by Igbos (Ibos).”
Temitope Akinyemi also wrote, “We are sick and tired of the Igbos, heaven knows”, to which the original poster responded, “Igbos are Animals.”
Adeoye Abdulgan added, “Igbos have finished Nigeria with their misbehaviour everywhere.”
A check shows that this video has a TikTok watermark. The user ID on the video’s watermark showed that it was shared on TikTok by Evanbenee12.
Evansbenee has the video pinned on his TikTok page. He posted the video on Saturday, and it has even more hateful comments and engagements than the ones on Lukuruwa’s X page.
It has more than 18,500 ikes, 5,584 comments, and 1,505 TikTok accounts have saved the video for future viewing. Meanwhile, it has been viewed over 400,000 times.
One of the comments from Dray reads, “Everybody can see we Nigerians don’t start it first, but when we start, our own president can’t even tell us to stop”, to which one Julita Bonney responded, “Is this your country?”
Star Glo, another TikToker, said, “Please, you people should focus on the Igbos, please.”
CLAIM
Ghanaian youths are destroying properties belonging to Igbos in their country.
VERIFICATION
To verify if the video was truly about Nigerians being evicted from Ghana, FIJ checked the comments across both TikTok and X and saw some users say that the clip showed the clearing out of a drug site by the Ghanaian government.
Most of them said the videos are related to the crackdown on illicit drugs in Zongo communities across Ghana.
Albert Akwesi, a Ghanaian commenter, said, “The video has nothing to do with Igbos or the destruction of their shops. It shows a crackdown on illicit drugs in Zongo communities in Ghana.”
Sika Official also added, “This video shows concerned community members in Sabon Zongo raiding drug dens to disrupt the trafficking and use of narcotics.”
General Owusu Bonah on TikTok echoed the same thoughts when he wrote, “This is not true. They are fighting drug dealers, not Nigeria, please.”
Also, a placard held by one of the people at the scene in the clip was spotted. It reads, “Don’t huff. Don’t puff. Say no to drugs.”
Furthermore, news reports from the country around April confirmed an attack on more than 20 shops in Sabon Zongo in Accra, the capital of Ghana.
That operation targeted shops selling weed, codeine, Tramadol and other illegal substances.
The residents of the area had raided bunkers in the area with the slogan “No bunker, no junkie”.
This further confirms that the claims of attacks on Igbos in Ghana attached to this clip are nothing but misinformation.
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