However, a fact-check by PRNigeria has revealed that this claim is false. The video is not related to any incident in Sokoto State.

According to a recent report by Daily Trust, bandits indeed abducted over 150 people and rustled more than 1,000 cattle in some villages in the Gobir Emirate of Sokoto State. This incident occurred a few days after the death of the Emir of Gobir, Alhaji Isa Muhammad Bawa, who was killed in captivity by the kidnappers.

Outraged by the escalating activities of terrorists and bandits in Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, and Kebbi states, the Minister of State for Defence, Dr. Bello Muhammed Matawalle, directed the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, and other military chiefs to relocate to Sokoto as part of intensified efforts to eliminate banditry, kidnapping, and other forms of terrorism in the North-west.

In response to these threats, some residents of the affected states have taken matters into their own hands, mobilizing against bandits and resorting to self-help. For instance, residents of Matusgi in Talata Mafara, Zamfara State, overpowered and killed about 37 bandits. Similarly, thousands of residents of Gobir in Sokoto State stormed the forest to rescue the 150 kidnapped victims and recover the remains of the district head of Gobir, Isa Mohammad Bawa.

PRNigeria conducted a detailed investigation of the video being circulated on WhatsApp. A reverse image search of the video's keyframes revealed that the footage had been shared by various sources, mostly with Arabic text. One of the sources was a tweet by Moscow News on August 31, 2024, which claimed that the footage depicted a mass massacre in Sudan. The text, translated from Arabic, read, "The largest mass massacre in the modern century was committed, and hundreds of civilians were liquidated in the most heinous form of genocide."

Further investigation showed that the footage had appeared two days earlier on Sudan Trends' X handle (formerly Twitter), with allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), supported by the UAE. This footage was also shared on a blog called Sudan Voices, which claimed that 700 detainees were liquidated in the video.

However, PRNigeria's in-depth investigation revealed that the footage originated from Burkina Faso, not Sudan or Nigeria. A Sudanese-based fact-checking platform, Juhainah, refuted the claim that the video was related to the war in Sudan. They confirmed that the video was from Burkina Faso, where a jihadist group known as JNIM, linked to Al Qaeda, massacred a large number of civilians who were digging trenches to protect themselves from attacks.

This was corroborated by a report from Reuters, which described the massacre in Burkina Faso as one of the deadliest attacks by jihadists in the region, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths.

Conclusion:

PRNigeria concludes that the claim that bandits massacred over 150 kidnapped victims in Sokoto, as depicted in the circulated video, is false. The video actually shows a mass killing in Burkina Faso by a jihadist group linked to Al Qaeda.