Does picture show Yahaya Bello jumping gate to escape EFCC?

A viral picture shared across social media and blogs claims to show former Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello, jumping the fence to evade EFCC’s arrest.

The claim is FALSE!

Ex-Governor Yahaya Bello has been in the news lately following attempts by the EFCC to arrest him due to allegations of money laundering, breach of trust, and misappropriation of funds amounting to Eighty-four Billion, Sixty-two Million, Four Hundred and Six Thousand, Eighty-nine Naira, Eighty-eight Kobo (N84, 062,406,089.88).

Bello has been reported to have failed to honour a summons or even allowed officials of the anti-graft agency to arrest him for questioning on petitions concerning the mismanagement of N84bn and N300bn, while he served as Governor of the confluence state from 2016 to 2024.

However, a trending photo has been circulating on several blogs and social media allegedly showing the former governor attempting to scale a fence to meet current Kogi State Governor Ododo’s security entourage, seeking their assistance in avoiding apprehension by the EFCC.

EFCC laid siege at Bello’s residence, Benghazi Street in Wuse Zone 4, Abuja on Wednesday, April 17 in an attempt to arrest him.

The trending photo was claimed to have been from his residence. It was reported that the former Governor was assisted in evading arrest by Governor Ododo, who visited his residence hours after thesiege began.

A check on the photo using Google Reverse Image search showed that an earlier copy of such a photo with a different face and background existed online as far back as 2014.

Further findings revealed that the person in the original image is Hon. Abdulmalik Usman Cheche, who represented the Bida/Gbako/KatchaFederal constituency of Niger State in the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015 and served as the Vice-Chairman of the Culture & Tourism Committee.

Conclusion

The claim that Yahaya Bello evaded EFCC arrest by climbing a fence is FALSE. There was no credible report of him jumping the fence of his Abuja residence as his means to evade arrest by the EFCC. The picture that is circulated has been altered, the original has Hon. Cheche’s head and this was replaced with Yahya Bello’s head.