Just spent 45 minutes fact-checking a WhatsApp forward about rice

My aunt sends a voice note into the family group this morning. She is saying how the price of foreign rice don drop to ₦45,000 per bag because of some new policy. I read it, I nod, I almost forward it. Then something inside me just say, wait, let me verify.

Forty five minutes later I have checked three different market price indexes, called two friends who sell provisions in Mile 12, and confirmed that the cheapest bag of foreign rice is still ₦72,000. The voice note was recorded in February. My aunt just discovered it today and decided to spread the gospel of cheap rice. Zero evidence, maximum confidence.

This is why I can't have nice things. My brain refuses to accept information at face value. Meanwhile my cousins are laughing at me in the group chat saying Deji you are doing too much. But who will tell them when they buy rice at the old price because they believed a forwarded message from February? Nobody sha.