For years, lured by the promise of an easy cure, people across Nigeria’s capital of Abuja sought relief from ailments such as malaria, typhoid, stomach ulcers and other sources of pain through a popular traditional “medicine” called Baba Aisha. But the comforting promises concealed a harmful truth.

Suspicious of the outlandish claims, Kemi Busari, editor of the Nigerian fact-checking outlet Dubawa, embarked on a five-month investigation that exposed the misleading assertions and led to immediate change. This investigation won the International Fact-Checking Network’s Highest Impact Award during June’s GlobalFact 10 summit in Seoul.

“What caught my attention and led to the investigation was the advertisement for the medicine, which misinformed people,” Busari said.

Kemi Busari (center) celebrates the win with his Dubawa colleagues in Abuja, Nigeria. (Courtesy: Dubawa/KemiBusari)

In the medicine’s nine-minute ad, a confident-sounding “Dr.” Salisu Sani Na Wagini, who many know as Baba Aisha, passionately recounted testimonies from satisfied customers and listed the myriad ailments that the concoction, also known as Sacra Herbs, can cure.

He recommended a dosage of one 120ml bottle a day, and boldly discouraged patients from going to the hospital or taking their children there.

“Even if you have the intention to go to hospital, Dr. Salisu Sani says, don’t go,” he says in the recording blared from car speakers across the city of an estimated 3.8 million people.

Busari sought to illuminate the content of the medicine, its safety and the legal framework that allowed it to thrive.

He interviewed more than a 1,000 retailers carrying the drug, who, like Baba Aisha, expressed confidence in its ability to cure all the listed diseases.

“To test the claims of effectiveness and safety, I bought four bottles of the medicine in four different locations in Abuja,” Busari said. He then sent them to an independent laboratory at Afe Babalola University for thorough testing.

While waiting for the results, Busari quickly established that one of the drug’s registration numbers was fake, while the other, acquired under questionable grounds, had long expired. And the company running the whole operation? It was unregistered, contrary to requirements.

Olaposi Omotuyi, a professor at Afe Babalola who holds a doctorate in biochemistry, called to share shocking lab results: All of the animals in the two groups that were administered Sacra herbs died within three to six days.

“It (the drug) makes the kidney function almost impossible, it makes the liver function almost impossible; that means that anyone who takes this (Baba Aisha herbal medicine) is at a high risk of acute kidney injury, if not chronic,” Omotuyi said.

After Dubawa published the 5,436-word report in June, the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control launched a probe into the fact-checker’s key findings.

“The fact check had an immediate impact and still continues to,” Busari said.

Kemi Busari poses with his award in Abuja, Nigeria. (Courtesy: Dubawa/KemiBusari)

Four days after the story came out, Nigeria’s national drug regulator raided and sealed off the building where the concoction was being produced, arrested two people and seized some items. Salisu Sani was arrested and detained.

Days later, the food and drug administration announced a nationwide mop-up of the dangerous substance.

Dubawa, an IFCN verified signatory that also tackles misinformation in Ghana, recently followed up to check if the drugs were still available in the market. Most retailers selling it have either stopped the business or gone into hiding, Busari said.

The crackdown did not stop with Baba Aisha products. The national regulatory agency has since gone after similar herbal medicines sold in the country of an estimated 224 million people.

Read Busari’s full investigation here.

Most Creative Format award goes to comedy

Indonesia’s Cek Fakta – Liputan 6, another IFCN verified signatory, presented a comic book that ultimately won the extremely competitive Most Creative Format GlobalFact 10 award.

The 128-page book Lawan Hoaks (Fight Hoax), aimed at young readers, is based on 21 debunked claims that spread during the COVID-19 pandemic. The fact-checkers distributed the graphics-heavy book to schools, libraries and universities.

Elin Yunita, who worked on the book project, said the comic approach is the fact-checking organization’s attempt at making debunks more appealing to millennials and Gen Z.

Reported incidents of people in some rural parts of the country, such as East Nusa Tenggara, hiding in the woods and on beaches to avoid vaccination because of COVID-19 disinformation also pushed the fact-checkers to be creative.

“This incident made us realize that people living in remote areas are vulnerable to becoming victims of disinformation, and we want to include them in our fact check campaign and effort,” she said.

While Liputan 6 has no plans to release other comic books on their fact-checking, they consider the four-month project a success.

“The feedback from our readers was mostly positive. Some mothers said the comics made it easier for them to introduce fact-checking to their children.”

For fake-checkers interested in a similar approach, Yunita recommends creating social media-shareable comic strips.

Download Liputan 6’s award-winning book here.

Most Innovative Collaboration goes to Brazil

A joint effort by Brazil’s leading fact-checkers to tackle misinformation surrounding the hotly contested 2022 presidential election won the Most Innovative Collaboration GlobalFact 10 award.

Agência Lupa, Estadão Verifica, Aos Fatos, Universo Online and Projeto Comprova partnered with Brazil’s top court, which oversees the electoral process in the country, to collect 347,000 questions and public requests for fact checks about the elections.

“Brazilian fact-checkers have a strong relationship, and we’re always open to collaborating with each other,” said Bruno Fávero, Aos Fatos’ innovation director, when talking about the project’s origins. “The elections were particularly crucial, and it made sense for us to work together.”

The collaboration, Confirma 2022, united the newsrooms in an effort to engage with voters, utilizing individual WhatsApp tiplines through Check, a platform developed by the not-for-profit tech company Meedan. In coordination with Tribunal Superior Electoral, Brazil’s top electoral body, Meedan reported that the project helped thousands of voters access reliable election information at an unprecedented scale.

Lupa chief executive Natália Leal said the project, initiated by Meedan, allowed the newsrooms to uncover evolving misinformation trends as the campaigns approached elections and to accelerate response times to surging misinformation. The collaboration also increased the distribution of fact checks.

“Combating disinformation is much more effective and has much more impact when it is done jointly by several organizations experienced in verification and fact-checking,” she added.

To support the staffers who reviewed thousands of messages a month, Lupa created a manual with clear instructions on what to do in different situations affecting their mental health.

“We also hired a therapist, who had open spaces in her schedule, so that our team could set up times for free conversations, which could be about work or not, according to each one’s needs,” she said.

The GlobalFact Awards, launched in Rome during the sixth edition of GlobalFact, have consistently sought to celebrate remarkable fact-checking within the International Fact-Checking Network’s community.

This year, 94 fact checks were submitted by verified signatories for consideration in three categories. Following a detailed review by the IFCN team, 12 nominees were selected. More than 1,100 members of the global fact-checking community then cast their votes to pick the year’s winners.