Claim: A picture shows Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, H.E. Geoffrey Onyeama standing with a Palestinian official, in April 2024, to show support for Palestine in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Fact: The picture shows Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, H.E. Geoffrey Onyeama receiving Italian ambassador to Nigeria in May 2022.
On 14 April 2024, Threads user @official_young_alhaji_ claimed (archived), “NIGERIA 🇳🇬 stands with Palestine in this World War 3♥️🇵🇸🤲🏾,” and shared a picture of the Nigerian foreign affairs minister allegedly standing alongside a Palestinian official, showing solidarity with Palestine in the on-going Israel-Hamas war.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check conducted a reverse image search and found that the image in the claim was shared by official Nigerian sources which confirm that it is not recent, and that it actually shows the Nigerian foreign minister meeting with the Italian ambassador.
The image was shared by the Nigerian Warsaw Embassy in its press release on 10 March 2022, which states that, “The Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs, H.E. Geoffrey Onyeama received in audience the Ambassador of Italy to Nigeria Mr. Stefano De Leo, today, 10th March, 2022.”
Geoffrey Onyeama, the former foreign affairs minister of Nigeria, also shared (archived) the photo on his official verified X handle on 11 March 2022, a day after the meeting, with a caption stating that he “received the Ambassador of Italy to Nigeria, Stefano De Leo.”
Soch Fact Check found several news articles from April 2023 which include complete pictures of the Italian ambassador to Nigeria in their reports. Even though the image in the claim only shows part of the Italian ambassador’s face as he is wearing a mask, his resemblance with the individual shown in the news reports strongly suggests that the official standing beside Nigeria’s foreign minister is in fact Stefano De Leo, the Italian ambassador, and not a Palestinian official.
Moreover, when we conducted keyword searches using “Palestine” in different combinations, the results did not yield any news reports about officials from the two countries discussing Palestine. However, we found that a fact-check by IFCN signatory, Africa Check, had investigated a different claim about Nigeria supporting Palestine and Iran in April 2024 and concluded that “Nigeria hasn’t declared support for Iran and Palestine.”
Since the meeting between the Italian ambassador and the Nigerian foreign minister took place in March 2022, more than a year before the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023, it is unlikely any discussion about solidarity with Palestine took place amongst the two officials at the time.
Thus, Soch Fact Check concludes that an image on Threads claiming to show the Nigerian foreign minister standing with Palestinian officials is misleading. The image is authentic but it actually shows the former foreign affairs minister of Nigeria standing alongside the ambassador of Italy to Nigeria.
Virality
The Threads post received 723 likes.
On X, a similar yet slightly different claim with the caption, “In this world war III, Nigeria Stand With Iran/Palestine. The giant of Africa is with the oppressed,” garnered 1.3 million views. This went viral around the time the Threads claim surfaced on 14 April 2024.
Conclusion: A Threads post claiming to show the Nigerian Foreign Minister meeting a Palestinian official recently to express solidarity is misleading. The image is in fact from March 2022 and shows the Italian ambassador to Nigeria standing alongside the former Nigerian foreign minister.
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Background image in cover photo: Earth Negotiations Bulletin
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