TheCable

This might cause you some migraine: the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) used pictures all the way from Liberia to portray the bad state of roads in Nigeria.

The main opposition party shared the pictures alongside a statement in which it tackled Babatunde Fashola, minister of works and housing, over his comments on the state of Nigerian roads.

Fashola has been in the news lately over his claim that report on roads in Nigeria are usually overrated and that some of the roads are “not as bad as they are often portrayed.”

That comment did not go down well with many Nigerians who took a swipe at the minister and accused him of downplaying the situation.

A federal lawmaker even challenged him to a road tour so he could see things for himself.

THEN CAME THE PDP

In a posted on its official Twitter handle, the shared two pictures of bad roads and another of Fashola, apparently to help drive home the point of the “sorry state” of Nigerian roads.

Screenshot of a tweet by the opposition party

Amid the backlash, the PDP asked the minister to resign and apologise to Nigerians over the comment.

“Every Nigerian knows that most of the major roads across the country are in (a) sorry state and that travelling on our roads has become traumatising and one of the highest life threatening experiences in our country since the last four years,” he said in a statement.

“The comment by the failed Minister of Works is therefore highly provocative and capable of invoking the anger of Nigerians, because it shows that either he has not been going through our roads and as such not in touch with reality or he has exposed himself as false-hearted official.”

One of the photos posted by PDP

Checks by TheCable showed that the pictures are not from Nigeria but of two different roads in Liberia.

An image reverse search of the two pictures brought up various media reports from Liberia in which they have been used with one dating as far back as 2015.

In one of the reports, Liberian Observer, a publication in the country, used one of the pictures which shows cars and a vehicle plying a very bad road, to illustrate how bad roads have delayed travels and inflated fares in western Liberia. The picture was also used by Front Page Africa, which covers news across Africa, in a report on managing road infrastructure in Liberia. That particular picture was also published by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID): ‘Liberia’s road to discovery’, published on its blog.

A close look at one of one of the cars captured in the picture shows a hilux van with a Liberian licence plate. How did we know this? TheCable checked and confirmed that licence plates in Liberia carry the country’s flag at the top left as seen here.

The second picture, which shows individuals that appear to be working on the road which is in a very bad state, was identified as Ganta-Yekepa highway in a report by Liberian Observer. A clearer version of the picture was posted on Imgur, an online image sharing community, where it was listed among the “Roads of Liberia” in a post dated 2015.

Ologbondiyan did not immediately respond to TheCable’s inquiry on the issue.