By Muheeb Mashood
On Sunday, 5th January, 2025, an X (formerly Twitter) user, @Unabombaa shared a video showing a celebration by some people in a remote location while partly covered with leaves. Accompanying the post is a caption that the people captured in the video are Yoruba from Ogun, one of the states in Southwestern Nigeria.
Background
With three major ethnic groups; Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, Nigeria being a multi diverse country has experienced bigotry and ethnicity overtime. With easy access to the internet, social media have been littered with false narratives targeted to fuel ethnic tensions in the country.
Claim
A video has been circulating on X claiming Yoruba were captured half-dressed, covered with leaves.
The post reads in full: “Meet the primitive yoruba tribe deep in the Ogun forest.
They still dress in leaves and are protected by Amotekun. I wonder why yoruba people don’t like to talk about them, it’s as if they’re ashamed of their brothers and sisters.”
As at the time of filing this report, the post has garnered over 20,000 views, over 73 comments, over 109 reposts, and over 240 likes.
A visit to the comment section showed that some people believed the narrative to be true.
For example, @Vanidasuwan_01 wrote: “Yoruba are too backward.” Similarly, @Zinzy2024Zinzy said: “Very primitive and local people!” Also, @AJstyle04 commented: “Dirty yorobaboons.”
In a bid to counter disinformation, The Informant247 deemed it necessary to investigate the claim.
Verification
When we subjected the screenshot portions of the video to Google Reverse Image Search, a result from Google Lens showed that the video was resurfaced as similar ones had been posted online as far as dated back to 2023.
The results revealed that the people shown in the video are from the Koma tribe settled in Northern Cameroon. Other results pointed to the same narratives as seen here and here.
Verdict
False! A video claiming Yoruba people were captured celebrating while partly dressed with leaves is not recent, untrue.