All I can think of is that sells are being counted as buys and that the ridiculously wide spread is obfuscating the mid-price. However I've seen this many times when the reason isn't obvious, at least to me. Such a wide spread confuses everything and makes the price seesaw. More liquidity needed to put it right.
Why wouldn't the dividend be paid either to the shorter (who would pass it back to the loaner) or to the loaner? Not really au fait with shorting so happy to be corrected.