By Pascal Ibe
Introduction
Nigeria’s North West is suffering deadly conflict involving many armed organisations, including herder-allied groups, vigilantes, criminal gangs and jihadists. The violence has killed over 8,000 people since 2011, and displaced over 200,000, some into neighbouring Niger. Despite several security operations and dialogue efforts, a durable peace remains elusive.
Gradually, Nigeria’s NorthWest has become the epicentre of banditry and terrorism, with the most recent attacks coming from the geopolitical zone.
From Sokoto to Kebbi State, the birth of Lakurawa terrorists in 2025 has given rise to killings, abductions and rustling of cattle with the security agencies showing little effort to deal with the monsters.
Claim
Two photos showing the corpses of the police operatives and a razed vehicle have circulated on Nigeria’s social media space.
Social media users have published the images to show the recent attack in a police camp by terrorists, which killed at least 10 police operatives in Kebbi State.
A former Nigerian Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung has shared the two photos and reported the attack to have occurred in Makuku in Sakaba Local Government Area of Kebbi State.
The post has already garnered thousands of views with many comments from people who expressed sadness over the incident.
Some of the comments suggested that people believed the images from the attack.
An X user, @Shaibu_AO (Azlannnn also shared the photos alongside a similar caption.
The claim can also be found here.
Verification
FACTWATCHNigeria found a statement by the Nigerian Police Force confirming the attack on Monday and that 10 police operatives died in the attack.
Major news organisations in Nigeria also reported the story here and here.
However, these images used to show the attack were not published by either the police or any news outlets in Nigeria.
FACTWATCHNigeria reviewed the images by subjecting them to AI detection devices.
We analysed the two photos using Is this AI, and the results from the detection tool showed that they were AI-generated.
Similar analysis was conducted in other AI detection devices, Deep AI and SightEngine, and the results were the same.
Verdict
Findings showed that the incident happened, but the two images used, showing the officers killed and the vehicle razed in the attack, are AI-generated and therefore FALSE.
