Post falsely claims Fulani extremists destroyed power plant in southeast Nigeria

A privately owned power plant recently commissioned in southeast Nigeria is expected to improve the electricity supply in the region. Social media users alleged a photo they shared showed that the plant had been destroyed in an attack by Fulani extremists. But the claim is false: AFP Fact Check found that the image had been online before the plant was commissioned and was taken in the United States.

“Aba power plant on fire this morning, the fire was set by some suspected people believed to be Fulani headmen along the Osisi-Oma road (sic),” reads the post shared on X on March 7, 2024.

Fulani are an ethnic minority group in Nigeria. They are predominantly Muslim herders found throughout West Africa and the Sahel.

The post, which has been reshared more than 300 times, includes a photo of a factory engulfed in flames.

The account behind the claim, “Ipob Central Liverpool”, has a history of sharing content in support of the Nigerian separatist group the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

IPOB is pushing for the independence of Nigeria’s southeast — the same region where the new power plant is located (archived here).

The group regularly uses disinformation campaigns to further its political cause.

The X account credited the Igbo Times as the source of the claim.

Igbo Times Magazine operates a blog and Facebook account, which regularly spread falsehoods. It has already been the subject of AFP Fact Check debunks, including here, here, here and here.

Aba power plant

The power station mentioned in the claim was commissioned in February in Aba, Abia state in Nigeria’s southeast.

Built by Geometric Power Limited, the 188-megawatt plant is expected to help accelerate the industrial development of the region (archived here).

Extremists have a history of attacking electric infrastructure in different parts of Nigeria.

A local newspaper reported that at least 117 electric power installations were vandalised in the last two years (archived here).

However, the claim that the Fulani extremists destroyed the Aba power plant is false.

Resin plant in US

Using a reverse image search, we found that the picture showed a blaze in the US in April 2023.

It was used in a CNN  story about the Pinova plant being on fire in Brunswick in the US state of Georgia (archived here). The photo caption credited Kyle Morgan as the photographer.

According to CNN, the plant “delivers speciality rosin and polyterpene resins”, not electricity.

It was shut down in June 2023 and is slated for decommissioning this year (archived here).

No Aba fire

On March 26, 2024, Geometric Power Limited published a post on LinkedIn to mark the one-month anniversary of the Aba plant's inauguration.

“Over the past month, we have been engaged in technical testing of all three turbines,” the company said in the post.

There was no mention of any attack on the facility.

Aba Power Limited, which distributes the electricity generated at the plant, described the claim as “fake news” (archived here).

A satellite image of the power plant's location obtained on April 11 showed no sign of destruction.

The police spokesperson for the state did not immediately respond to AFP Fact Check’s request for comment.