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AFP

Video of Trump vowing to ‘liberate' secessionists in Nigeria is AI-generated

'This is what I've been waiting to hear from President Donald Trump,' reads the caption of a video posted on Facebook. The clip has been shared more than 2,000 times since it was published on February 18, 2025. 'After I finish with the Ukraine war in Russia, I will turn to Nigeria to liberate the Igbo people of Biafra,' Trump appears to say in the clip. The video was shared by a page with almost 3,000 followers called 'Republicans of United States of Biafra' that regularly shares posts in support of Biafran secession. Image Screenshot of the false post taken on February 27, 2025 Biafra supporters have been pushing for the independence of Nigeria's southeast, where a bloody civil war was fought in the late 1960s. Simon Ekpa, a dual Finnish-Nigerian national who claims to be the Biafran prime minister, was arrested in Finland on November 21, 2024 for allegedly inciting violence with a terrorist intent (archived here). Nnamdi Kanu, the founder of the movement, is also on trial in Nigeria after he was extradited from Kenya (archived here). The video purporting to show Trump announcing his plans to liberate Biafra has also appeared elsewhere on X and Facebook. However, there are visible inconsistencies in the footage that show the video is doctored. Generic video template Closer inspection reveals noticeable defects around Trump's mouth and chin, a typical sign that the video was generated using an AI tool. The stamp of a website is also visible in the top right corner of the video. The website allows users to create videos of certain public figures, including Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Snoop Dogg, who 'read out' the inputted text. In a previous debunk of the same footage, AFP Fact Check traced the original video, which was uploaded to YouTube on January 14, 2021, by US news network CNBC (archived here). The five-minute video showed Trump talking about a deadly assault on the US Capitol by a mob of his supporters on January 6, 2021. Trump did not mention Nigeria or Biafra in any part of his speech. Image Comparison screenshots showing the AI-generated video (left) and the 2021 CNBC video on YouTube Pro-Biafra activists have repeatedly shared false claims that foreign governments have endorsed the secession of a Biafran nation from Nigeria. You can read our debunks on the topic here and here.