By Pascal Ibe
Introduction
First, in November 2025, Trump’s comments on the insecurity and alleged Christian killings in Nigeria started as a lamentation, then turned into a warning and then the United States president later ordered the listing of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, a concept which shows the watch list of nations that do not allow religious tolerance.
As if this was not enough, Trump in a video that year, labelled Nigeria as a “disgraced country” and threatened to “go guns ablazing” to take out the “Islamist terrorists killing Christians.”
In December 2025, after a series of high-level meetings between the US and the Nigerian government, Trump agreed to send military equipment and troops to Nigeria in joint operations with the Nigerian military.
The operations led to the deaths of scores of terrorist leaders.
However, not up to ten months after the joint US and Nigerian military operations began, the US government announced the pulling out of US troops from Nigeria, claiming that the insecurity no longer existed.
Claim
On the X platform, an X user, @oluremitinubu, on 7 September, posted (archived here) an image of a news headline showing Trump’s apology to Tinubu.
The news headline in the image reads, “President Trump Apologized to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu”
The X user published the image, with a caption that reads, “🚨BREAKING: 🇺🇸Donald Trump apologised to 🇳🇬President Tinubu for the unfounded accusations made over the past year. According to Trump, he “was wrong ‘ and that the Nigerian authorities’ culpability regarding the current terrorism situation in the country.” Moreover, the American president called Tinubu a “friend” and a “good guy.”
Some comments in response to the claim showed that many people believe the claim. While others dismissed it as a lie.
Verification
To verify, FACTWATCH Nigeria subjected the image to a Google image Reverse Search website, and the results picked out a similar image which first appeared online on 31 August.
We noticed that the officials who stood behind Trump during his briefing at the Oval Office are the same as in the photo posted by the X user’s claim; however, it was discovered that the news headline in the image appeared on many foreign news platforms in August, but had a different headline which showed that the event focused on the Trump administration’s healthcare policies at that time.
The president was joined by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., among others.
The caption on the original photo reads, “TEXT “POTUS” TO 45470 FOR WHITE HOUSE UPDATES”
Many news organisations attached the photo and video as a feature image while reporting the story here, here and here.
No report by a reputable news organisation in Nigeria and in the US confirmed this claim to be true as of 9 October.
Verdict
Simple findings have revealed that the image used to depict Trump’s apology to Tinubu was altered, as FACTWATCH Nigeria discovered that the original photo was a different image from an event in the Oval Office in August. Therefore, the claim is FALSE.
