Samad Uthman

2 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Samad Uthman

Following the news that Nigeria paid off its remaining loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in May, Facebook posts shared hundreds of times falsely claimed the country was “debt free”. In reality, according to the latest data published in April by Nigeria’s Debt Management Office (DMO), the government owed external lenders almost $46 billion even after the IMF loans were paid off.

3 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Samad Uthman

Social media posts and Nigerian news websites have claimed that a woman was set to face trial in a sharia court in northwestern Zamfara state for converting from Islam to Christianity. But the claim is false: the image used to support the story shows a Senegalese woman living in the United States. Zamfara authorities denied the existence of such a case while the news outlet that first reported the story as fact has since deleted the article.

4 weeks ago | malaysia.news.yahoo.com | Samad Uthman

Samad UTHMAN / AFP Nigeria / AFP Brazil21 May 2025 at 4:56 am·3-min readFollowing Pope Leo XIV’s ascension to the papacy, social media posts have claimed that he snubbed an LGBTQ pride flag waved at him while he walked down a corridor greeting well-wishers.

4 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Samad Uthman

Following Pope Leo XIV’s ascension to the papacy, social media posts have claimed that he snubbed an LGBTQ pride flag waved at him while he walked down a corridor greeting well-wishers. However, the claim is false; the flag, which can be seen on one side of the corridor while the pope is busy greeting people on the other, is Italy’s pacifist emblem, which shares rainbow colours but features a different design to the pride flag.

1 month ago | malaysia.news.yahoo.com | Samad Uthman

Samad UTHMAN / AFP Nigeria15 May 2025 at 9:53 am·3-min readBefore he was suspended for six months by Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, Rivers state governor Siminalayi Fubara had been in the news over a power struggle with his predecessor, Nyesom Wike. A Facebook account has posted a video claiming it shows Fubara begging Wike for forgiveness last month in a bid to reconcile. However, the claim is false; AFP Fact Check found that the video was taken back in 2023 after Fubara became governor.