Claim

A viral post on WhatsApp groups, claims Nigerian farmers Association is giving 100,000 Naira grants to both farmers and non-farmers as part of the 2022 farmers’ budget to support all Nigerian citizens.

The post reads:

” National association of farmers

  To all farmers and Non-farmers in Nigeria

  This is part of 2022 farmers budget to support all Nigeria citizen

  Registration Portal has been opened and payment has began

  Note: Check if your eligible to get #100,000

  Click below to visit the official disbursement site

  https://ng-farmers.big-offer.online

  Batch B audition has been completed. As batch C is on going now!! “

About AFAN

All Farmers Association Nigeria, AFAN is an Apex Commodity association for farmers in Nigeria. It was founded in the year 2004 and recognised by all related bodies in Nigeria and beyond.

It is made up of what is referred to as commodity associations, with its head office in Abuja. The commodity associations are formed based on the commodity a farmer produces.  Thus under AFAN, there are members of commodity associations such as Snail farmers’ association, Poultry Farmers’ association, and many more.  

AFAN is an umbrella body of all the fifty-six recognized commodity associations with branches and structures in all the thirty-six states of the federation. However, the commodity association comes together once a month under the umbrella of AFAN to discuss matters related to the progress of the farmers.

The  All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) is led by Arc. Kabir Ibrahim, who was elected into office in 2014.

ROUNDCHECK Findings

 A click on the claim link showcases the logo of the association with a small note that reads:

“Apply now for Nigerian Association #100,000 Grant To Farmers and Non-farmers.”

Below the logo is a form requesting details of individuals’ who wish to apply for the #100,000 Grant.

The form entails an individual;

• Full name
• State of origin
• Home Address
• Phone Number
• Bank Account Number
• BankName
• Have you registered before?

ROUNDCHECK noticed the next page can be accessed without filling the form above. Just a click on “apply now” and the next page will be accessible.

The second page reveals a congratulatory message and the next step to getting the grant.  This page also discloses the days, hours, minutes, and seconds the registration will close. It states:

CONGRATULATIONS

Please complete the following questions

Registration closes in: 10days 08hours 06minutes 23seconds

The first multi-choice question reads;

1. Are you a citizen of Nigeria?

          Yes,I am

          No,I’m not

2. Where do you live?

            North

           South West

           South East

           South-South

The last question that leads to the final page says;

3. What will you use your 100,000 for?

          Crop Farming

           Rent

          Animal Farming

          Other Business

The final page discloses a congratulatory message and the eligibility status of an individual. If eligible, individuals are asked to share the link to five WhatsApp groups until the button panel below is full; After which the individual request will be processed immediately and the grants will be received within 24hrs.  

The upper part of some pages reveals the number of registration slots available. It states that 402,343 Registration slots are left. Likewise, below some pages, it states that 106,600 Nigerians had applied so far.  

ROUNDCHECK, with the aid of Scam Adviser, a website verification tool that identifies if a website is safe or scam by giving a detailed review on its company, webshop, and technical review, helped in giving more information about the website.

For the company review of the claim website, the identity of the website owner has been hidden. This may be done for a valid reason as spammers use this information to email website owners. Unfortunately, it also makes identification of the owner difficult. A website with a notable country code Top-level domain (.ng) is not supposed to have a hidden identity.

The claim website is just a week old and that shows the website was set up recently. It claims the United States country phone number details and server, while its country code’s Top-level domain is Nigeria.  

The use of iframes or other technologies which make it possible to show content and functionality which is located on another web server was identified on the website.

With the aid of SSLCheck, made by Xolphin, which is also a website verification tool that verifies the proper installation of a website  SSL certificate and reports any potential issues as well as possible solutions.

The SSLCheck result for this website shows it has a valid Domain and the validity of the website Domain will last a year, that is from 28th of June, 2022 to the 28th of June, 2023. Although the SSL certificate shows it does not have an Organisation Validation because the background information of the website is hidden.

What is SSL?

Secure Sockets Layer(SSL), is an encryption-based Internet security protocol. It was first developed by Netscape in 1995 for the purpose of ensuring privacy, authentication, and data integrity in Internet communications.

SSL is the predecessor to the modern Transport Layer Security TLS encryption used today.

A website that implements SSL/TLS has “HTTPS” in its URL instead of “HTTP.”. It simply means the database of a user on a website that has “HTTPS” is secured.

ROUNDCHECK In a phone conversation with the National Secretary of All Farmers Association of Nigeria, Alhaji Yunusa Halidu disclosed that the association is not giving out any grants.

“We are not giving out any grants, people have been sending the message to me but the post is from 419 not from our association “, he said.

Verdict

The viral post on WhatsApp groups that claims Nigerian farmers Association is giving 100,000 Naira grants to both farmers and non-farmers in Nigeria as part of the 2022 farmers’ budget to support all Nigerian citizens is FALSE; as research has shown it is NOT VALID.