Video of a Nigerian female police officer accusing male colleague of assault is from 2022, no longer 2024 as social media posts claim
IN SHORT: In 2022, several Nigerian media retail outlets reported that a female police officer had accused a male coworker of assault. Quickly after, a video of her explaining what happened went viral on social media. The same video has resurfaced, with some posts implying that the incident took place in late 2024.
“This is what the Nigeria terrorist Nigeria Police Force are doing to their female colleagues. After overdose of drugs they will rape and kill anyone available,” reads the caption of a video that has been circulating on Facebook since September 2024.
The video has a split display. In the center it presentations a female police officer explaining what allegedly happened to her. She appears to have bruises on her chest and arms. There are also three images of Nigeria’s inspector-general of police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun.
The female police officer can be heard saying: “What is my offence? He just started beating me, and even got me naked. Look at my chest and my hands, he injured me everywhere … He asked me out and said I should befriend him. I said ‘no, I am a married woman and I can’t befriend you’. He started blackmailing me … He went inside and had a gun, saying he wanted to gun me down.”
The same video can be came across here, here, here and here, all posted in September 2024.
But was the female police officer assaulted by her male colleague in 2024, as instructed on social media? We checked.
Extinct video
A search of keywords from the claim led to several news articles from November 2022.
The articles said the female officer claimed to have been assaulted by her male colleague in Nigeria’s Osun state “for refusing his intimate relationship proposal”.
They also said Usman Alkali Baba, the inspector-general at the time, ordered an investigation into the matter.
Egbetokun took over as the IGP in 2023.
The incident took place in 2022, no longer 2024 as claimed online.
