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Photo of ‘peeling’ road from South Africa, not Nigeria’s Imo state

Uzodinma detachable road construction. Ndi Imo ndo nu. We shall overcome fraudsters,” says a post shared on Facebook in Nigeria.

The sentence in Igbo, “Ndi Imo ndo nu”, translates to sympathising with the people of Imo state in southern Nigeria.

The post, published on 10 December 2021, captioned a photo of a man apparently peeling off the top asphalt layer of a road. 

The post suggests the faulty road was built by Hope Uzodinma, the governor of Imo state who was once a senator for Orlu West.

But was this photo taken in Imo? We checked.

NigeriaRoad_False

Road links South Africa and Botswana

Some comments on the post pointed out that the photo is not of a road in Imo state. 

A reverse image search shows the photo was originally published on News24, a South African online news site, on 9 November 2020. 

The article is titled: “Newly fixed road linking SA and Botswana is ‘peeling like a fruit’.” 

The photo is credited to “Blessings Ramoba/Facebook”, suggesting, as is described in the article, that photos of the road were shared by the public on social media. 

According to News24, the peeling road was officially named the P68/1 and “links the Lehurutshe areas in the Zeerust-based Ramotshere Moiloa local municipality”. 

This large municipality borders Botswana. The road in the photo is definitely not in Nigeria.

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