By Pascal Ibe
Introduction
President Bola Tinubu’s return to Nigeria at the end of September after spending more than three weeks on vacation in Europe, signals one thing, his readiness to kick off his presidential 2027 campaign for his re-election bid
The president’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had in August, constituted the party’s presidential campaign council, featuring many political heavyweights who appeared on the list
Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, a strong member of the APC, who was also on the list, serves as the secretary of the campaign council.
The major objective of the campaign council is simple: grassroots mobilisation to gain votes for President Tinubu.
Claim
As a series of meetings by the APC towards the election continues, a video clip claiming to show Uzodimma being locked out or stopped from attending a meeting Tinubu had with the APC campaign council has surfaced online.
From Facebook to the X platform, YouTube and Instagram, the video has continued to spread across the Nigerian social media platforms.
This video was posted here, here, here and here.
Users across social media have believed this claim that truly, the video shows Uzodimma being stopped from attending the meeting.
Verification
First, FACTWATCH Nigeria cut out many key frames from the clip and subjected them to Google Lens to ascertain when the video first appeared online.
Results showed that this video was published on 9 October by many credible news organisations in Nigeria.
TVC News, a television station, also posted the exact but longer video on its Facebook page on the same date, alongside a caption which confirmed that the clip was from the meeting Tinubu had with the APC council leaders.
But to verify further whether Uzodimma was truly stopped from attending the meeting, we searched and found on Channels Television’s YouTube page a video of Uzodimma speaking as the council’s secretary to a State House Correspondent after being part of the APC presidential council meeting with President Tinubu.
Uzodimma, during the interview, said the APC presidential campaign council are united, committed and working together for Tinubu’s re-election in 2027.
Verdict
The video, which claims to show Uzodimma being stopped from attending the APC presidential campaign council meeting with Tinubu, is FALSE, as the governor later briefed journalists about what was discussed in the meeting.
