The video dates back to 2019 and was not taken in Niger.
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This post on X (formerly Twitter) with a video, purportedly of a Nigerien soldier displaying his military prowess using black magic, is FALSE.
“Here’s a Niger soldier displaying his military prowess using black magic as Ecowas prepares to invade the sovereign nation. We’re sitting on a time bomb in West Africa, no one is safe,” the post reads.
The footage depicts a man in military uniform using a rifle and a pistol to shoot himself in the mouth. He then spits out the bullets, seemingly unharmed.
The Nigerien army ousted President Mohamed Bazoum on 26 July 2023. Since then, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), of which Niger is a member, has worked to reinstate Bazoum, and even contemplated a military intervention.
We performed a Bing image search on one of the video’s screenshots to determine the clip’s authenticity and established that the footage is not of a Nigerien soldier and that it predates the coup.
The video was featured in this 26 July 2019-dated article with the headline, “South Sudan colonel shoots himself on video: how he faked it”.
https://observers.france24.com/en/20190726-south-sudan-colonel-shot-mouth-survived-faked-trick?source=post_page—–6a1a914d9e44——————————–
A ballistics expert reportedly urged South Sudan military leaders to take disciplinary action against Col Kuanyin over the demo, believed to be fake.
PesaCheck has looked into a post on X with a video, purportedly of a Nigerien soldier displaying his military prowess using black magic, and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Peris Gachahi and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.
