Photos attached to the claim on X
Claim: An X user claims that a United States Air Force Gulfstream V ISR aircraft is conducting operations in Southwest Nigeria, targeting bandit spillover from the ‘northern ops’.
Full Text
“Amid security concerns and recent threat of military actions from US President Donald Trump, if the Nigerian government fails to address the alleged killing of Christians, social media platforms have been awash with misleading posts and unverified claims.
One of such claims came from an X user, Ozor Ndi Ozor, on 6 December 2025. Ozor claimed that for the first time, a US Air Force Gulfstream V ISR aircraft (registration N529RL) conducted operations in Southwest Nigeria, specifically Kwara and Ekiti States.
The user claimed the aircraft is targeting bandit and insurgent spillover from northern ops.
The claim reads: “For the first time, a US Air Force Gulfstream V ISR aircraft (reg. N529RL) is conducting operations in southwest Nigeria above Kwara and Ekiti states, targeting bandit/insurgent spillover from northern ops. This follows nearly two weeks of prior US ISR missions over northern”(sic).
Screenshot of the post on X
The pictures attached to the claim featured a flight tracker map and two images of a grey military drone.
As of December 12, 2025, the post had attracted significant online engagement, with 9,858 views, 29 reposts, and 90 likes.
We fact-checked this claim due to its virality and potential to misinform the public.
Verification
We conducted a keyword search on Google. Our findings showed that no credible international or Nigerian news media organisations reported any current US operation in Southwest Nigeria. The claim surfaced from a social media post.
Findings show that the registration number N529RL belongs to a Gulfstream V (GLF5), operated by Tenax Aerospace, a private defence contractor, but it is not a standard US Air Force military number.
We conducted a reverse image search on the images attached to the claim. The result shows that the photos were of drones, not aircraft.
The drone photos are old images of a US Army MQ-1C Grey Eagle drone that made an emergency landing in Agadez, Niger, due to a mechanical failure in January 2021. News reports on the incident can be found on The Washington Times and here, here, here and here.
Screenshot of the news report on The Aviationist
Conclusion
At present, there is no verified evidence indicating that the US Air Force is participating in any operation in Nigeria.
Military operations against insurgents are often covert, and foreign involvement is not always disclosed publicly.
The images used in the claim are misleading.
They depict a US drone that had technical fault that resulted in an emergency landing in 2021, not any aircraft involved in any operations in Southwest Nigeria.
