A picture was posted on X with the caption, ‘Even if you are obsessed with hating anything Zimbabwean🇿🇼, quick question for those who have travelled across the country: what’s the name of this Highway?’
While the road did look like it could be in Zimbabwe, there was something off about it. A look at the comments did not clarify anything but added to the confusion.
One of the first comments read, ‘It’s N4 in South Africa between Middleburg and Nelspruit. That kiosk on the right has a Vodacom sign and Zimbabwe doesn’t have Vodacom.’
The original poster then offered airtime as a reward to the person who responded, ‘This is Bulawayo road near kuwadzana and DZ’.
There were numerous comments attributing the pic to different countries including Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Ghana and India.
Whose road is it?
A reverse image search brought up interesting results … but more confusion.
The picture has been used numerous times by Zimbabwe’s mainstream media on stories dealing with road dualisation. The articles have been published by The Standard in 2017 here, The Newsday in 2017 here and The Herald in 2018 here, among others.
Interestingly, the Information ministry used the same picture on X in October, 2018 in a post, ‘Dualisation will be carried out as one enters and exits towns in order to manage congestion. The dualisation would be on 10km on both sides of the towns. On the Harare-Chirundu Highway, work will be carried out to straighten some of the curves. #TSP #VISION2030’.
While none of the posts makes the outright claim that this is a Zimbabwean road, the constant use of it in articles referencing Zimbabwe roads might have misled people into believing it is a Zimbabwean road, to the extent now where it is being claimed that it is part of the stretch between Harare and Norton.
Verifying the picture
The picture has been widely used and in more than one country. Reverse image search showed that it was used in this article from Ghana in 2021, with no caption.
Earlier, it had been used in 2020 on a Facebook post with the caption, ‘today we take a look at our roads
beautiful Sierra leone🇸🇱🇸🇱🥰 Don’t you think Sierra leone is better in roads connections now than before compear to our neighboring Liberia and Guinea? Let us know below the comment section and don’t forget to follow and like this page’.
However, it had been used even earlier than that in an article from India in 2017.
This was the earliest use of the picture we had found. Armed with this information we went back to reverse image search adding the word ‘India’ to the search.
This returned a clearer picture from Rising citizen with the caption, ‘An update on Indian National Highways Part 1’.
Armed with the clues from the reverse image search, it was time to turn to the clearer picture for further clues.
We zoomed in on the picture and could see a service station. The name is HP. The logo is in red and blue.
A search of this logo returned results for Hindustan Petroleum. Hindustan Petroleum is an Indian company. This seemed to suggest that this was a road from India. We returned to reverse image search and added ‘Indian national highway’ to the search. One of the results was to the original Rising Citizen article from. 2010. It had a series of pictures from the Indian highways and this picture was part of the series. It is captioned, ‘Roads in Maharashtra:
The first 2 pics are of Kasara Ghat’.
The angle of this picture is different from the one used on X. This one does not have the outbuilding on the right of the road and it is clear on the traffic that this is a different picture. However, it is also clear from the service station, the two boosters and the vegetation that it is the same place.
Conclusion
The picture used in the X post is not from Kuwadzana, Victoria Falls or any part of Zimbabwe, despite the numerous times it has been posted on Zimbabwean road articles and social media posts. It is not from Ghana, South Africa, Mozambique or Sierra Leone, either. It is part of the Indian national highway in the region of Maharasthra.
