The Nigerian Presidency has called for the arrest of a social media influencer, Martins Vincent Otse also known as VeryDarkMan for allegedly leaking what has been described as a fake audio of President Bola Tinubu.
Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, made this call on his official X account on Wednesday.
The controversy erupted after VeryDarkMan shared a viral video featuring the alleged fake audio clip of Tinubu.
In the clip, the voice purportedly attributed to the President suggested that insecurity in parts of Nigeria, particularly the South-East, would persist due to a lack of electoral support in the 2023 polls.
The audio in question was played during one of VDM’s recent videos, where he urged Nigerians to reject President Tinubu’s potential re-election bid in 2027.
However, Onanuga accused the influencer of spreading false and misleading content online, describing the development as a dangerous abuse of social media platforms.
Reacting in a post on X, Onanuga insisted that the recording was fabricated and called for legal consequences against VDM for disseminating the content.
“This VDM needs to face the weight of the law for being the conveyor and disseminator of a fake audio of President Tinubu. This is a clear case of an egregious abuse of the social media platform,” Onanuga wrote.
The presidential aide was responding to reactions triggered by another X user, Aneex, who dismissed the recording as “cheap propaganda” and questioned claims that the voice in the clip belonged to the President.
The audio has since generated heated debates across social media, with many users expressing doubts over its authenticity. Critics pointed to the unusually fast and clear tone of the voice in the recording, arguing that it did not match Tinubu’s widely known speech pattern, which is often described as slow and measured.
