The circulated pictures are actually the People’s Daily Building, unveiled in Beiijing, China circa 2013. The building however brought a comic relief from "How I Met Your Mother" to life.
In late 2017, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State created a Ministry of Happiness in his state to ‘address bitterness’ through direct relation with the citizens.
Shortly before this, the renowned orator had also commissioned a string of unnecessary statues in honour of practically everybody from Jacob Zuma, to Adam Barrow, to Uhuru Kenyatta and so forth.
On August 15, 2019, posts swirled online that his brainchild, the Imo State Ministry of Happiness was building a 'Tower of Happiness' shaped like the male reproductive organ. The only problem about this is that it is fake news. There is no tower in Imo state like this. This is another example of fake news.
People's Daily Building in Beijing
The image that has been floating around is from 2013 and it is the headquarters of the People's Daily of the Communist party in China.
The image of the funny-shaped building also grabbed headlines in China. The reactions were viral and funny that Chinese censors had to hurriedly censor the country's insane popular microblogging site Sina Weibo.
Located in Beijing, the building design is the brainchild Prof Zhou Qi of Southeast University School of Architecture. It is a 150 metre tall building and was completed in 2014.
If you look carefully, you can see Mandarin letters on the wall of the controversial building. This feature was obviously missed by a lot of Nigerians.
Governor Rochas
Considering the Governor Rochas' reputation for bizarre occurrences and unnecessary structures, it was definitely believable that the building had Imo origins.
There is no official statement to find out if this fake news has inspired the Governor to erect a penile shaped tower of happiness.
Rochas hit back at his critics last year over the creation of the controversial ministry. "At the end of the day, the achievements of the new Ministry of Happiness and Purpose Fulfillment will be so amazing that the critics of the initiative, will not only be shocked but will also regret to have drawn the curtain for the new Ministry even before it takes off he said in a statement.
For posterity sake, the politician said that he created the ministry because people are still bitter and angry at government policies.