Asides healthcare workers who are known to be on the frontline in the war against COVID-19, the media constitute a set of warriors in the struggle, albeit unsung. Globally, the media have followed every event on the COVID-19 pandemic, sometimes creating fear but generally raising hope that the pandemic does not mean the end for …
As a child growing up in Sango-Otta, Ogun State, Adeyemi Idowu loved to play soccer with friends. Like others in his age group, he also delighted in rolling tyres with a stick in his right hand as he scampered through the neighbourhood. But he soon had to bid farewell to that life of playful adventure …
Read more “Nigeria’s Polio Survivors Not Out of the Woods Yet, but the System Hardly Cares”
Afees Agboola is no stranger to speaking the English language, and that is an understatement. He started teaching the language as far back as 2006 during his teaching practice as a student in the college of education. In 2012, he was admitted to the University of Ilorin where he studied Primary Education and minored in …
Since its establishment eight years ago, the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has disbursed hundreds of billions of naira to government-owned schools to train teachers and address infrastructural deficits. Kunle ADEBAJO paid visits to three federal universities in Northwest Nigeria — Ahmadu Bello University, Federal University Dutsin-Ma, and Federal University Dutse to see how they use the …
Read more “TETFund Projects at Federal Universities Suffer from Abandonment, Poor Planning”
A 20-year-old hoax suggesting that staring at female breasts has the effect of promoting longevity in men has been circulated by the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, the government-controlled news wire service. Other media houses also fell for the age-long hoax. Crediting NAN, news platforms including Premium Times and TheCable reported the “study” on Tuesday. Vanguard Newspaper, DailyPost, and many other web platforms have likewise shared the report …
Read more “No, Study Does Not Show Staring at Women’s Breasts Prolongs Lifespan”
Pictures from the general elections conducted four years ago and 2015 xenophobic attacks in South Africa have been recently shared in support of claims about violence in Kogi and Bayelsa gubernatorial elections, The ICIR has observed. A report by The Nigerian News, a “citizen’s online publishing and broadcasting platform”, shared on Tuesday made use of a suspicious …
Nigeria is the world’s 13th largest oil producer and President Muhammadu Buhari re-affirmed in his latest Independence Day address that oil constitutes the bulk of Nigeria’s revenue and foreign exchange earnings. But, as the country quickly depletes her limited oil reserves and the world at large advances in technology, experts agree it’s time it focused on something else: data. Communications Minister Isa Ali …
Read more “Nigeria’s Massive Data Poverty and Why We Should be Concerned”
When Beninese parents are pushed to the wall due to poverty and the burden of caring for too many children, they often send their wards to neighbouring Nigeria with the help of traffickers to earn extra income. In part one of this investigative series, ‘Kunle ADEBAJO tells the story of what lies on the other …
Statistics show that, in nearly four decades, the output of Nigeria’s manufacturing sector has remained the same. The World Bank estimated that, as of 2018, the country’s Manufacturing Value Added (MVA) was worth $31 billion. But checks by The ICIR revealed that this was also the figure in 1982. On Friday, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, …
Read more “Nigeria’s Manufacturing Output Is The Same Today As It Was In 1982”
Pictures can mislead in several ways: when they contain false information, are doctored to misinform or are employed in a false context. As part of a series scrutinising online posts by prominent social media users, The ICIR used publicly available tools to verify pictures shared on Twitter by Lauretta Onochie, Personal Assistant on Social Media …
Read more “The Many Social Media Lies of Lauretta Onochie, President Buhari’s Aide”