As Nigeria inches closer to the 2027 presidential election, the country’s digital spaces have become a battleground where loyalty to candidates often trumps truth. Supporters of rival political parties are spending hours on X, Facebook, and other platforms, not just to argue policy but to create and circulate content designed to damage reputations. Sometimes the content is absurd, like the image shared by an X user with the handle “Mayor of Calabar” on September 2, 2026. It showed the logo of the Africa Democratic Congress next to a photo of Atiku Abubakar, the party’s presidential candidate, and claimed Atiku had promised to provide free kidneys to every patient suffering from kidney failure in Enugu State. The post gained over 2,500 views, dozens of comments, likes, and reposts within days. Similar versions appeared on Facebook. To some, the promise might have sounded like compassion; to others, a desperate bid for votes. But the claim was entirely false. Researchers checked the official ADC pages and Atiku’s own social media accounts and found nothing of the sort. The image had been manipulated with the party’s logo to appear authentic. It was a textbook example of how a single image, however false, can tap into the anxieties of a nation. That moment captures the strange reality of Nigerian political discourse online: a fabricated promise about kidneys, meant to make a candidate seem reckless or gullible, can travel faster than any correction. It also reveals something deeply human: in a country where many people struggle to access quality healthcare, a promise like this is not just a joke. It speaks to real pain, and that is exactly why disinformation works. The people who invented the story knew it would resonate, and they counted on the fact that most viewers would respond emotionally before pausing to verify.
The kidney hoax was not an isolated event. It emerged just days after Atiku unveiled his manifesto for the 2027 race, and almost immediately, social media users began attributing wild promises to him. One post by @Banty4them featured a front page from a newspaper called The Kachalla Newspaper with the headline: “Each Nigerian citizen will be given a car and a house each if I become president.” The post was captioned sarcastically: “Congratulations Nigerians! It is a new dawn of white elephant promises.” It gathered over 1,700 views, 136 likes, and 52 reposts. But a simple keyword search showed that no newspaper called The Kachalla exists, and no official record of Atiku making such a statement could be found. The comments section was even more revealing. Some users did not care whether the quote was real. @Ronkecarey wrote, “No surprises here, typical of Him. The good thing is he won’t ever become the president by God’s grace.” Another user, @Omo28015Talabi, asked, “Where are the houses and cars you gave us when you were vice president?” These reactions show how disinformation feeds on existing political anger. People already convinced they would never support Atiku were happy to believe the worst, no matter how ridiculous. The fake front page became another weapon in their rhetorical arsenal, a way to mock a politician they had already judged. It also illustrates a broader truth: many social media users are not passive victims of disinformation. They are active participants, sharing and commenting because it gives them a sense of belonging, moral superiority, or entertainment. The line between fact and fiction blurs when participation feels more important than verification. What makes it even more concerning is that these false headlines look polished. They mimic the layout, fonts, and seriousness of real newspapers, making it hard for an average person to tell them apart from a legitimate publication. And because these fakes are designed to trigger instant reactions, the truth often arrives too late.
The pattern continued with even more elaborate fabrications. Another X user, @Sistaliano, shared a post that appeared to be from Sahara Reporters, a well-known Nigerian news outlet, with the claim that Atiku promised to sell the Central Bank of Nigeria if elected. “I will sell the Central Bank if I’m elected. Other countries have done it in the past,” read the caption. That post exploded, accumulating over 23,900 views, 357 likes, and 186 reposts by September 4, 2026. Again, no such statement existed. Sahara Reporters had not published any such story, and Atiku had not said anything like it. The same false claim was duplicated across Facebook, spreading further into spaces where fact-checkers rarely reach. Then came a post claiming Atiku had pledged to increase the number of states in the Southeast to eight and make sure the region could access the ocean and have a seaport. This one used the name and logo of Press Xpress Nigeria, but the outlet’s original account had no record of the report. Interestingly, the search did reveal that Atiku had recently promised to reopen and develop borders in the South, stating that border closures had hurt businesses in the area. The real proposal was old news, but it was twisted into a fabricated promise about state creation to make him look opportunistic. There was also a fake Daily News headline quoting Atiku as saying he would give every Nigerian one bag of rice weekly when he became president. The post gained only modest attention, but it added to the pile of nonsense. Taken together, these examples reveal a coordinated pattern: take a real political moment, create a fake but believable news artifact, and circulate it across multiple platforms. The goal is not necessarily to convince everyone that the quote is true. It is to create confusion, to make the candidate look absurd, and to energize opponents who are eager to share anything that fits their narrative. The sheer volume of fabricated stories makes it exhausting for ordinary citizens to separate fact from fiction, especially when the fake headlines are designed to look exactly like the news they see every day. In this atmosphere, even the most sensible policy proposal can be transformed into a weapon of ridicule within hours.
Atiku was not the only target. President Bola Tinubu was dragged into the same disinformation chain just hours later. On September 4, 2026, an X user shared an image of the front page of the “Nigerian Herald” with the headline claiming Tinubu promised to provide a 24-hour power supply if he was selected for a second term. The post gathered over 4,600 views, 163 likes, 119 reposts, and 73 comments. But no credible publication had reported any such statement. The name “Nigerian Herald” seemed to be an impersonation of the “Herald Newspaper” based in Kwara State. Similar false posts surfaced on Facebook, spreading even further. Another user, @Xagreat, shared a fabricated front page from “The Daily Tribune” claiming Tinubu had said petrol price would sell for N5,000 per litre starting May 29, 2027. The page was an invention; no Nigerian media outlet bears that exact name, although the real “Nigeria Tribune” exists. The same user later claimed Tinubu said the dollar might rise to 3,500 naira in 2027. No evidence supported that either. Then came a particularly sinister post: Tinubu allegedly threatened to jail students for life if they refused to repay their loans after graduation. That too was fabricated. The student loan issue is real and deeply relevant, especially for young Nigerians who face economic hardship. Attaching a fabricated threat to a sitting president is a way to stoke fear and resentment, not just against Tinubu but against the entire political class. These fake headlines targeting Tinubu followed a similar visual template, and some even used a background image of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) convention, even though Tinubu is a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC). That mistake was glaring to anyone familiar with Nigerian politics, yet the posts still managed to generate thousands of engagements. It shows that many people share content based on the headline alone, without noticing the inconsistencies embedded in the image. In a country already polarized along ethnic, religious, and party lines, such fabricated content deepens the divides and makes reasoned debate nearly impossible. The human cost is a growing sense that nothing politicians say can be trusted, which in turn makes it easier for the powerful to evade accountability.
A closer analysis of the fake front pages reveals how they were made and why they fooled so many people. Fact-checkers at DUBAWA noticed that all the fabricated pages shared a similar layout, including the same year of establishment, volume, and issue number: “Since 1951, Vol 75, no 0231.” That is a strong sign that the creators used the same AI template tool to generate the images, simply swapping in different names, headlines, and photos. Several AI tools could have been used, including Dremina, Canva, Adobe Express, and even ChatGPT. These platforms are widely accessible, and many of them allow users to create extremely realistic newspaper mockups in minutes. The result is a flood of disinformation that is cheap to produce and hard to detect. What makes it even more concerning is how realistic these visuals have become. The fake front pages look like scans of actual newspapers, complete with bold headlines, columns, and logos. For an average social media user scrolling through a busy feed, there is almost no reason to question them. The human brain tends to trust familiar formats, and a newspaper front page carries an aura of authority. When people see a photograph of a newspaper with a shocking headline, their first instinct is not to check whether the newspaper exists but to react to the content. This is a deeply human vulnerability. We are wired to respond to novelty, shock, and threat more quickly than we respond to logic. Disinformation creators exploit this by designing content that triggers anger, fear, or hope. They also take advantage of social media algorithms, which reward engagement. The more outrageous the headline, the more likes and shares it receives, and the more it appears in other people’s feeds. Over time, this creates an online ecosystem where truth becomes a secondary concern. Even when fact-checkers publish corrections, the viral posts often continue to circulate because people have already absorbed the emotional impact. Some users, recognizing the trend, have turned the phenomenon into entertainment, sharing ridiculous and comical fake front pages for fun. But while laughter can be a coping mechanism, it also normalizes the very behavior that threatens the integrity of democratic discourse. What begins as a joke can end up shaping how millions of people vote.
The timing of these fabrications is not accidental. With the 2027 election drawing closer, political actors and their supporters are already preparing for a fierce contest. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has warned about the potential impact of artificial intelligence on the electoral process, and rightly so. In response, the commission is conducting a comprehensive audit of its electoral technology systems and considering a mock presidential election to test its readiness. That is an important step, but technology alone cannot solve the problem. The deeper issue lies in the behavior of individuals and communities. Many of the posts described above were not created by sophisticated foreign bots but by ordinary social media users with their own political biases. They shared fake headlines because they wanted their side to win, or because they hated the other side. They rarely stopped to ask whether the information was true. This is where media literacy becomes essential. Citizens need to learn how to verify content, how to question suspicious headlines, how to check the source of an image, and how to resist the urge to share something just because it confirms their beliefs. Civil society groups, journalists, religious leaders, and educators all have a role to play in teaching these skills. Political leaders also have a responsibility to denounce false content, especially when it is created to benefit them or harm their opponents. The fight against disinformation is not about censorship; it is about creating a culture of accountability. In a democracy, voters need reliable information to make choices. If the public cannot distinguish between a real promise and a fabricated one, elections become meaningless. The stories about free kidneys, free houses, bags of rice, and threats to jail students are absurd, but they are also dangerous. They erode trust, deepen cynicism, and distract from the real issues that matter, such as healthcare, education, security, and economic opportunity. As the 2027 campaign intensifies, the temptation to use AI-generated disinformation will only grow. The challenge for Nigeria is not just to expose these tricks after they go viral, but to build a society where people pause, reflect, and ask one simple question before sharing: Is this real? That question might seem small, but it could be the most important defense against the manipulation of the democratic will. It is also a reminder that democracy is not a spectator sport. Whether Nigeria’s next election is free and credible depends not only on institutions, but on the willingness of ordinary people to defend the truth as fiercely as they defend their candidates.