Claim: A viral video circulating online claims President Tinubu has announced when Nnamdi Kanu will be released.

Verdict: False

Full Text:

NDRFactcheck found a video circulating online claiming that President Bola Tinubu announced when Nnamdi Kanu would be released in a broadcast.

The thirteen-minute video, part of which reads, “The matter of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has been a sensitive and divisive issue in national discourse, generating legal, political, and community tensions.”

“After extensive consultations, the President has directed the federal government to initiate structured legal and constitutional processes that may lead to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s release in the coming months.”

Broadcast

S creenshot of the video

You will recall that on 17th February, 2025, the traditional ruler of Olo Kingdom, Eze Ogbunechendo of Ezema Olo Kingdom, Lawrence Agubuzu, urged President Bola Tinubu to revisit the trial of Nnamdi Kanu to enable his release.

He said this during the Healthcare Summit organised by the Federal Government at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, and said he is always pained each time he remembers that Nnamdi Kanu is in Sokoto Prison.

Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the proscribed separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), was sentenced to life imprisonment in a judgement delivered by Justice James Omotosho.

NDRFactcheck moved to check the veracity due to its national interest as regards the person of Nnamdi Kanu, who has been seen as a threat to the security of the country, most especially the southeast states, where thousands have been killed due to agitation of the sect.

Verification:

Firstly, we carried out a Google reverse image search of the photo screenshot from the video; it shows that the picture first surfaced in 2024, and several media organisations have since then used it.

Our researcher searched for the social media handles of the presidency. Our findings on the 28th of May, 2024, were that the X handle of the Federal Ministry of Information tweeted and attached pictures of President Tinubu inaugurating the Southern Parkway project in FCT, and we found similar pictures from the video.

Further investigation found the original video from YouTube reported by the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) showed where the president was speaking and where the video was edited out.

NDRFactcheck subjected the video to the use of other reliable detection tools, including Deepware’s scanner and Tencent’s AI detection assistant; only Hivemoderation could analyse the video, and it detected an AI-generated speech.

Other verification gotten can be seen here, and here the handle of the villa house shows.

Result of the video’s scanning on hivemoderation.

Conclusion:

The findings prove that the video is generated with artificial intelligence; forensic and manual analysis indicate that the video is not real, and the speech is artificial intelligence-generated.

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