A viral video shared on Facebook by user @BiafraIconicWarrior claims that the just elected president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, has ordered the Nigerian government to release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu with immediate effect.
The post suggests that Donald Trump is giving the Nigerian government an ultimatum of November 30, 2024, for the release of Kanu or USA would withdraw their support to Nigeria.
The video shows Donald Trump giving a speech with the u.s. flag behind him.
As at the time of verifying this post, the video had been shared severally on different WhatsApp groups.
Haltfake.org found out that this post on Facebook had garnered 30k views, 1.2k shares, 287 comments and 690 likes.
Nigeria and the United States of America have had budding trade relations since the signing of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA treaty) in 2000. With this pact, both nations have enjoyed growing trade that has impacted their economies.
Watching the video, it could be found out that there’s no sink between the lips of the speaker and the audio. The audio ran out while Donald Trump’s speech was still going on, this reveals that the audio was tampered with.
Meanwhile, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was arrested and detained on October 14, 2015 by the administration of president Muhammadu Buhari, and detained for over a year on grounds of pushing a separatist agenda through IPOB. Kanu was rearrested in June, 2021, and has since been in prison.
However, the video portraying Trump’s threat that the financial and humanitarian aids provided to Nigeria by America, would be stopped if Kanu was not released, was an inciting statement.
More so, this is coming from a government that hasn’t been sworn in after winning the US election.
It, therefore, becomes clear that this post is a doctored video of Donald Trump’s campaign video, having seen the lag between gesture, lip sync and audio.
Furthermore, it reveals that the video is aimed at causing controversy, circulating fake news and possibly creating tension or hostility between Nigeria and the United States.
It is important to note that Nigeria is an independent nation just as the United States of America. And so, America will have violated Nigeria’s sovereignty, contravened diplomatic norms and also violated non intervention principles by intervening in the Nnamdi Kanu’s case.
To further buttress the fact that this information is false, we did a Google check on the story and found out that no prominent media organisation had it published on their website, social network or YouTube channel.
Verdict: The claim that Donald Trump ordered the Nigerian government to release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu with immediate effect is false.
