By Pascal Ibe
Introduction
Supporters of political candidates for the 2027 general election in Nigeria, continue to manufacture and dish out a series of negative posts on social media about their opposition candidates to demarket them and ruin their chances of being elected.
They do this by fabricating old maligning and negative stories as recent, posting misleading or false comments which they attribute to the politicians they are targeting.
The supporters of President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress and supporters of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate and a former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, are always seen in the act of discrediting each other’s candidates.
Claim
A viral image showing loaves of campaign bread labelled with Peter Obi’s face and a political logo has been circulating on social media ahead of the 2027 Nigerian elections.
The image was accompanied by claims that Peter Obi and his supporters are sharing bread to woo voters.
An aide to the Delta State Government on media, Ossai Ovie Success, posted (archived here) the image on his Facebook page with a caption that reads, “Peter Obi now sharing bread ahead of the 2027 elections. Same campaign bread that he has always kicked against. While doing something you have consistently kicked against. I am disappointed”
The claim also appeared here, here and here.
Verification
The image showing loaves of campaign bread labelled with Peter Obi’s face and a political logo was subjected to four different AI image detection websites, and the results showed that the image was 99 per cent created with AI.
DeepAI, SightEngine, IsThisAI and ZeroGPT were used to run analyses that confirmed the image was AI-generated.
FACTWATCH Nigeria searched for credible reports that may have reported or confirmed the image was from Obi’s. However, no such report was found as of 25 October.
We also checked the social media handles of the lead supporters of the MDC candidate but could not find the image being posted by them recently.
Verdict
A thorough analysis of the image using an AI image detection website showed that it was created by AI.
There is no concrete evidence that confirms the image was real. Therefore, the image is FALSE because it was AI-generated.
