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If a viral story in Nigeria is to be believed, a very hungry gorilla swallowed N6.8 million at a zoo in Kano state. But we visited the zoo -- there’s no trace of a gorilla there, and managers say it has never housed a gorilla in its 47-year history. Umar Yusuf, the manager of the zoo, said the N6.8m ($18,862) was stolen by armed robbers. This post by BBC Pidgin, shared over a thousand times, and archived here , quoted a local privately-owned radio station as repoorting that an unnamed zoo official claimed the money was swallowed by a huge gorilla. The BBC, however, said in its report that it could not independently verify the claim. Many Nigerian newspapers and blogs reproduced the story, citing the BBC, Freedom Radio, or no source at all. Some of them, archived here , here , here , here and here , have been shared thousands of times on Facebook. A screenshot taken on June 21, 2019 shows a widely-shared Facebook post about the false gorilla story The same post has also been shared in other countries across Africa, including South Africa, Ghana and Kenya. Some of those posts have been archived here , here , here , and here . AFP journalist Aminu Abubakar made a visit to the zoo, where he was told that the site has never had a gorilla in its care since it first opened nearly half a century ago. Umar Yusuf, general manager of the zoo, explained that the money in question was stolen at around 3am on Sunday, June 9, 2019. Suspected armed robbers stormed into the zoo and broke into the administrative section and burgled and ransacked seven offices, Yusuf told Abubakar. A safe where 6.8 million naira was ripped open and the money stolen. The money was from gate takings during the Muslim Sallah (Eid) festivities. Nine security guards on duty were tied together and locked inside an office by the robbers. He said the money had been kept in the zoo office as it was received over public holidays, when banks didn't open. Western gorillas are considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature . Nura Lawn Doguwa, the head of the primate section at the zoo, said the Kano zoo kept no gorillas. It does however keep six monkey species: the sooty mangabey, the tantalus monkey, the chimpanzee, the red patas, the mona and the dog-faced baboon. How the false story spread The gorilla story was first aired on the privately-owned Freedom Radio on June 10 via its popular Hausa program Inda Ranks, which roughly translates as Odd World. The zoo manager said a Freedom Radio reporter came to investigate the story a day after the radio aired the gorilla story, but the management refused to talk to him on the grounds that the police, anti-graft agency and a committee set up by the state governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje were carrying out an investigation. The reporter returned two days later but was rebuffed. The zoo management said it is considering appropriate legal action against the radio station for the embarrassment the report caused the zoo. The guards on duty when the theft occurred are still in police custody, while investigations by the police and the Kano state anti-corruption agency are ongoing. It was claimed in 2018 that a snake had swallowed N36 million ($100,000) at the office of Nigeria’s Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB). Philomina Chieshe, the sales clerk who made the claim, is currently being prosecuted. You can read AFP’s story on the case here .
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