Fact Check: UNIMAID Students Not Arrested as Boko Haram Informants — Viral Video Recycled

A video claiming that security operatives have purportedly arrested students of the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) in Borno state for allegedly serving as informants to Boko Haram terrorists for monetary gains is circulating on social media, especially Facebook and WhatsApp.

The less than two-minute video is a collage of two clips. The left side shows the content creator giving an account of what happened, while the right side shows soldiers and police parading suspects.

The content creator claimed that the arrested students shown on the right side of the video are from UNIMAID, and they were arrested for purportedly being on the payroll of Boko Haram.

“See some students wey dey work hand in hand with Boko Haram in University of Maiduguri. Thank God hand don catch them,” the content creator said in Pidgin English.

“They are students of the University of Maiduguri. They are the informants of Boko Haram. Their names are in the payroll of Boko Haram.”

Some social media users who circulated the video captioned it thus: “Some students of the University of Maiduguri working with bandits! Who’s to be trusted again in Nigeria?”

The video was posted on Facebook here, here, and here.

VERIFICATION

One of the clues in the viral video is the inscription of “SARS” on the back of the vest worn by police officers who were restraining the young men.

SARS is an acronym for special anti-robbery squad, a now-disbanded police unit. The police unit notorious for harassment, torture, extortion, and murder of suspects was disbanded in October 2020 following the #EndSARS demonstration.

The clue depicts that the video must have been taken before the disbandment of SARS in October 2020

An online search for possible arrests of UNIMAID students yielded results indicating that the video used in the viral post has been available on the internet since September 2019.

Some social media users who shared the video in September 2019 claimed that the suspects were UNIMAID students arrested over alleged cultism, while others alleged they were arrested for working with Boko Haram members.

Longer versions of the arrest video had been on social media since September 2019.

Credible media platforms had reported that the army and police arrested 25 suspects, including three dismissed soldiers, during their initiation into a cult group in Maiduguri on September 22, 2019.

The suspects were arrested at the Bagani Hotel in Abuja’s Talakawa ward of Maiduguri metropolis.

Most of the suspects were reportedly students of UNIMAID and Ramat Polytechnic.

Eagle Online, an online news website, in a report published on September 23, 2019, attached another version of the video showing the students’ arrest.

In October 2019, the management of UNIMAID released a statement denying the reports alleging that the UNIMAID students arrested were Boko Haram informants.

UNIMAID said since 2009, the management has not found any evidence linking its staff or students to the Boko Haram insurgency.

UNIMAID RELEASES NEW STATEMENT

Following the recycling of the 2019 video of the arrest of suspected cultists, UNIMAID management, in a statement released on Monday, said the claim that some of its students were arrested for collaborating with Boko Haram insurgents is “false, baseless, and mischievous”.

Ahmad Lawan, registrar of the university, said no student of the institution has been found to have any link with Boko Haram.

VERDICT

The claim that UNIMAID students were arrested for working as Boko Haram informants is false, as the viral video shows the arrest of suspected cultists, who were students, in Maiduguri in 2019.