Abuja comedian, Valentine, nabbed for posting fake news on Facebook

A popular comedian, Augustine Valentine, a.k.a MC Fine, has been apprehended by the police in the FCT for allegedly spreading fake news.

According to DSP Biodun Makanjuola, the Divisional Police Officer in Bwari, FCT, alleged that Valentine posted a false report on facebook alleging the apprehension of a female kidnapper.

“After investigation, we found the report to be fake,” he said.

The woman who is in her middle-age, simply identified as Zulai, had been attacked on Wednesday in Zenith Bank area of Bwari over the suspicion that she had attempted to kidnap a two-year-old male child.

The police immidiately arrested the woman and during an investigation, they found out that she was physically and psychologically unstable.

“When she was brought here, I asked my people to first take her to the General Hospital for medicals. They came back with a medical report indicating that she was suffering from depression.

“The report also referred her to Karu Psychiatric Hospital for proper evaluation. Right now, we are preparing to take her there.

“We were still on the matter when I started receiving calls about a post on Facebook claiming that the woman was a kidnapper.

” The report claimed that her phone had message conversations on how many children to be kidnapped.

“I made efforts and finally discovered who posted the story, brought him here for questioning, and he confessed he only added some of the details to add glamour to the story,” he said.

He, however, cautioned against spreading “unverified news”, warning that it could cause rsecurity breach.

“We are working with the affected families to douse the tension. This town can be volatile, so we are not taking anything for granted.”

Valentine, who regretted his action, admitted that he was not at the scene of the incident on Wednesday.

According to him, the pictures and the alleged story were sent to him via Whatsapp, a social media platform, by an unknown number.

He had earlier raised a fake alarm, through his facebook account, that a woman was caught in Bwari attempting to steal a child who was playing with his mates around the market.

Valentine had on facebook claimed that “the crowd gathered, checked her phone which revealed how many children she was asked to provide by her accomplices”.

Dikko Samuel, Mai Angwuan Bwari, who is also the grandfather of the child Ms Zulai was accused of attempting to kidnap, said his wife called his attention to the incident when he was on his farm.

According to him, his wife, who was cooking corn by the roadside, turned and saw the suspected kidnapper holding the child and walking away.

“That was when she raised an alarm and people gathered and started attacking the woman. They were about to lynch her when we intervened and told the angry crowd that she was insane.

“I was also made to understand that she loves children and that they always followed her around because she gave them sweets and biscuits.”

A visit to the house of the suspected kidnapper, the son of the owner of the property on which she lived, who also pleaded anonymity, said that she had lived in the house for more than a decade.

According to him, Ms Zulai had been unstable for a long time but was harmless and had never shown any sign of violence or criminal behaviour.

He also said that she sometimes had a lot of children in her company, buy sweets and other food items for them when they surrounded her, with no parent complaining.