In recent weeks, a picture of what appears to be a rotten hand has appeared on social media platforms (predominantly WhatsApp) claiming that local manicure practitioners of northern extraction are now using their business as a conduit for ritual practices.
The picture of a rotten/rotting hand is also accompanied by an unknown voice telling people to stop patronizing the local manicure practitioners because they are now harvesting people’s fingers via spiritual means for ritualistic purposes. The person speaking in the voice message specifically identifies a tribe of Nigeria as responsible for the crime, asking people to start buying their own razor blades and start cutting their own nails at home instead of engaging the services of ‘abokis’.
Our Correspondent Immanuel Odeyemi conducted a fact-check on this claim and made the following submissions;
OVERVIEW:
As far back as the 70’s, which is when the fact-checker can validate by personal knowledge and memory, Hausa men popularly known as ‘Abokis’ pioneered and completely dominated the local manicure and pedicure industry in Nigeria. Traversing the length and breadth of Nigeria, they carry rectangular wooden boxes, housing the tools of the local manicure and pedicure trade (razor blades, locally manufactured nail clips, soapy water etc). It is very obvious that that they provided a service, and perhaps filled a gap because the service they provided can be seen as an exclusive preserve of the upper class of the society.
FACT-CHECK METHODOLOGY:
First, there was no identity attached to the person speaking in the voice note. This is an increasingly constant feature of mischievous messages on social media, people sharing warning messages without disclosing their identity or true location to lend credence to their claims.
A Google Reverse Image search was done on the picture and though there was very sketchy information that was thrown up, the picture was shown to have been posted as far back as 30th July 2018 by a Facebook profile ‘ambilikile’ who made it their profile picture. No other information was available on the picture, and another user was seen asking “what is that disease”?
Further checks show that the handle might have been deleted after that post, or the profile tags updated.
More importantly, the origin of the name ‘ambilikili’ appears to be Kenyan from a check on all compound names listed on Facebook and containing the original source name ‘ambilikili’.
A random check on Google using keywords such as ‘Aboki’, ‘manicure’, ‘rituals’, ‘fingernails’ etc did not bring up any reports of such highlighted by the voice note.
CONCLUSION:
Based on the fact-check as outlined above, the claim that Abokis or people of northern origin in Nigeria are using the local manicure trade to use people’s fingers for rituals is COMPLETELY FALSE and should be discountenanced by the public.
IMPLICATIONS:
The viral message is capable of pitting people of different ethnic origins against each other, thereby leading to civil unrest or ethnic violence.
It is also capable of negatively impacting on a local economy, a group of people’s source of livelihood.
This fact-check was done by Immanuel Odeyemi, Journalist with Megalectrics Limited (Operators of Lagos Talks FM, Classic FM, Beat FM and Naija FM radio stations).
