FACT-CHECK: Is APC presidential candidate, Tinubu, giving out N15,000 as campaign grant?

CLAIM

A broadcast message has been circulating on WhatsApp claiming that the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate for 2023 general election, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is giving out N15,000 in cash to all Nigerians as campaign grant.

VERDICT: False

FULL TEXT:

“*TINUBU (2023) N15,000 CAMPAIGN GRANT.

Benefits of this Campaign Grants.

To create General Support

To Support Youth and Every Citizens.

To Create Awareness about Posstivity Of BAT. *

*Hurry Now and Check if you are Eligible to Receive TINUBU (2023) N15,000 CAMPAIGN GRANT.*

*This Grant is Available To all Nigerians.

*APPLY HERE*

https://lyupz.com/Tinubu-2023-15K-Grant”

RIPPLES NIGERIA first observed the message to have grammatical errors and a suspicious link. Hence, the need to verify the message. One red flag is the use of ‘Every Citizens’ instead of ‘every citizen’, and also ‘Posstivity’ instead of ‘positivity’, among other red flags of grammatical errors and sentence structure.

FINDINGS

A click on the link in the message shows a homepage displaying a flier containing a photo of the APC presidential candidate with his name spelt out as ‘Bola Ahmed Tinubu’. Written beneath the flier are the words ‘N15 000 CAMPAIGN GRANT’.

But the link quickly changes

https://lyupz.com/Tinubu-2023-15K-Grant to https://freeclaim-it.online/Tinubu-CampaignFunds/. This means that the link changes from the one posted to another one- a red flag to identify fake sites.

The homepage also contains a paragraph which gives the reasons for the grant and why it should be applied for.

Here is the full text:

“The APC presidential Candidate for 2023 General Election Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) has opened another oppportunity and a great step ahead of 2023 General Election to help and solicit support from Nigerians against coming Presidential Election by Proving the Sum of 15,000 in Cash to all citizen and this is part of 2023 Presidential campaign and a benefit to all Nigerians. This opportunity is available for every citizen to claim. One Nigeria and a better Nigeria for us all. Claim your Own 15,000 By Filling The Form Below.The TINUBU 2023 CAMPAIGN GRANTS (N15,000) New Campaign Grants to support All Nigerian’s. Applicants are to fill the form below and click on Apply”

Personal information about applicant’s identity, location and gender was requested on the same page.

A ‘select your category’ button was also displayed where an individual is expected to select whether he is Unemployed, Employed/Self Employed or a Student.

An individual then has to tick a small box to agree to apply for “TINUBU (2023) N15,000 CAMPAIGN GRANT”.

However, RIPPLES NIGERIA noticed that even without filling the form an individual can click apply and access the next page.

On the next page, a congratulatory message appears where the applicants are also requested to provide answers to a quiz

The quiz reads: –

Question one asks about employment Status, question two asks about marital status of applicants while question three says: “Do you need this N15,000 Grants?” Surprisingly, the options provided do not answer the question.

A successful response to the quiz above leads to the next page where applicants are informed that they’ve been selected to benefit from the grant.

Read also:FACT-CHECK: Is video of soldiers flogging civilians doctored as claimed by Gov Umahi?

Meanwhile, applicants are required to invite 15 friends or share the link to 5 WhatsApp groups. The site stated that only the invitation can guarantee withdrawal code.

With the aid of Scamadviser, a platform that helps verify the authenticity of a website, RIPPLES NIGERIA was able to get some highlights about the claimed website.

The website has only been registered recently but it hasn’t had a lot of visitors and the website has been placed
for sale. A potential red flag indicating that the website is used for dubious purposes.

Scamadviser also warned that the website was set up recently. Scam sites are often very young. They are removed from the web after a couple of months as too many consumers leave negative reviews and social media comments.

According to the result found on Whois, it was noticed that a private person registered the website with the name ‘Namecheap’. The suspicious name has no correlation with the grant or the giver of the grant.

RIPPLES NIGERIA noticed that the website was registered on the 11th of May, 2021, updated on the 12th of March, 2021 and it was meant to expire on the 11th of June, 2022.

A thorough search of the verified social media handles (Twitter and Facebook) of the APC presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the official website of the All Progressives Congress did not reveal anything relating to the claim of the N15,000 campaign grant.

CONCLUSION

The claim that the APC presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is giving out N15,000 as campaign grant is FALSE.

By Promise Eze

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