Nigeria is battling one of the worst cost-of-living crises in recent years, compounded by a weak local currency. Against this backdrop, a social media post claims that a video shows stacks of new naira notes stashed in a warehouse in northern Nigeria. But the claim is false; AFP Fact Check found the video shows bags and boxes of hoarded food items, not money.

“Lovers of Nigeria come and see where una money is used to build walls. Bundles of new Naira being hidden in a warehouse in the North (sic),” reads a post shared on February 15, 2024.

A screenshot shows the false claim, taken on February 19, 2024” src=”https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/3WDreGgUJdbahHjQzFi0Tg–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTk5Mw–/https://media.zenfs.com/en/afp_factcheck_us_713/c0be61752d5c73e834e96609d91f18b6″ class=”caas-img”/>

The post features 30 seconds of footage showing several men walking around inside a building filled with boxes stacked high. At least one person can be seen carrying a video camera. The narrator in the clip speaks Hausa, predominantly spoken in northern Nigeria.

Shared at least 530 times, the post was published by an account sympathetic to Simon Ekpa, the self-declared factional leader of the Nigerian separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

Members of the proscribed group regularly employ disinformation in their campaign for the independence of Nigeria’s southeast (archived here). Ekpa himself has been the subject of several AFP Fact Check debunks.

IPOB members, who still refer to themselves as Biafrans, dissociate themselves from Nigeria and regularly mock “lovers of Nigeria” when highlighting the country’s failings.

However, the claim that the video shows new notes stashed in a warehouse is false.

Hoarded food items

Using a reverse image search, AFP Fact Check found a longer version of the clip shared on X on February 14, 2024 (archived here).

“Why hide these volumes of foodstuff to create artificial scarcity and price increases?” the post asks.

Four minutes into the longer footage, a man identified as “chairman” speaks to the camera.

“As you can see, the commission has made true its promise that we are going to embark on a fight against the hoarding of essential commodities in the state,” he says.

Nigerian newspaper Punch, which published an English transcript of what the man said, identified him as Muhyi Magaji, the chairman of the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission (archived here). Kano state is in Nigeria’s northwest region.

“From what we have done so far, we are certain that there is an impact. From here we are going to the market to ascertain the situation,” said Magaji.

Other footage of Magaji’s visit to the food warehouse appeared in reports by local broadcasters Arise News (archived here) and Television Continental (archived here).

Magaji told AFP Fact Check the claim that the video shows stacks of money “is not true”.

“It’s nothing but food items suspected to be hoarded for future profits at the expense of the people,” he said.

Nigeria’s cost of living crisis

Prices of food items have soared in recent weeks in Nigeria as the effects of President Bola Tinubu’s policies continue to bite harder (archived here).

The Nigerian leader removed the costly fuel subsidy that has kept the prices of petroleum products artificially low the day he took office in 2023 and ended years of foreign exchange control. 

Nigeria’s statistics office said inflation stood at 29.9 percent in January, up from 28.9 percent in December 2023 (archived here) and more than eight basis points higher than a year before.

With food inflation at over 35%, rising prices have sparked pockets of protests in major cities (archived here).