FACT-CHECK: Was coronavirus deliberately created by someone in a lab to infect people?

A news video by Arise TV showed the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, claiming that the coronavirus was created in a lab deliberately by someone to infect other people. The video has generated nationwide reactions from the public, especially on social media.

Magu was defending his earlier comment that Cornoavirus was caused by corruption.

THE CLAIM

The video posted by Arise News on February 26, 2020, on its Twitter handle: @AriseTV, shows Ibrahim Magu, EFCC chairman, claiming that somebody deliberately sat down in the lab and created the coronavirus with a view to infect and destroy other people in the world.

In the less than two minutes video, Magu re-emphasised that coronavirus was a product of corruption.

Once again, @officialEFCC boss, Ibrahim Magu insists that Coronavirus is a product of corruption! He made this remark at a meeting with @Tweet_abuzaria Academia.@Fmohnigeria | @NigeriaGov | @NGRPresident | @SERAPNigeria | pic.twitter.com/BTbjLihTiO

— ARISE News Feed (@ARISEtv) February 26, 2020

“Because the coronavirus was a creation by the corrupt mind. Somebody actually created corruption viruses… I mean, coronavirus.

“Somebody deliberately sat down in the lab and came up with the creation of the coronavirus with a view to infect and destroy other people. So, who else is more corrupt than that?

“So, it was created by a corrupt mind. So, I still insist that coronaviruses is caused by corruption,” Magu claimed.

He stated this at the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the anti-graft agency he heads and the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria.

THE CHECK

A fact-check investigation by Daily Trust shows that Magu’s assertion and claim were INACCURATE.

Data obtained from the World Health Organisation website states that “Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses which may cause illness in animals or humans.  In humans, several coronaviruses are known to cause respiratory infections ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). COVID-19 is the most recently discovered coronavirus disease.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2), a virus closely related to the SARS virus. The infection is spread from one person to others via respiratory droplets produced from the airways, often during coughing or sneezing.

Health authorities said it emanated from the Chinese wet markets in Wuhan on 31 December 2019.

The disease, according to the WHO Situation Dashboard as at noon on March 8, 2020, has so far infected 105,523 persons (confirmed cases), recorded 3,584 deaths, involving 101 countries, areas or territories with cases globally.

Nigeria recorded one confirmed case of an Italian man who tested positive to the virus on February 27, 2020 in Lagos.

Whereas, corruption, according to the Cambridge English Dictionary, is an “illegal, bad, or dishonest behaviour, especially by people in positions of power.”

According to Transparency International, “Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. It can be classified as grand, petty and political, depending on the amounts of money lost and the sector where it occurs.”

Though several newspapers, such as UK’s The Sun, Mirror and MailOnline, have reported claims by Chinese scientists that the current coronavirus (Covid-19) may have originated in bats kept in a Chinese government laboratory in Wuhan, the claims haven’t been peer reviewed by other scientists, and didn’t offer any clear evidence that the outbreak began in a lab.

The position paper by the Chinese scientists also didn’t support claims that the virus was artificially created. It simply proposes it as a possibility. There is no evidence or suggestion in the paper that coronavirus was artificially created in a lab.

THE VERDICT

There is no scientific proof or data to show that the coronavirus is bio-engineered in any lab or caused by any act of corruption as claimed by Ibrahim Magu.