Senate President Godswill Akpabio has escalated a viral political storm into a full national
security matter, formally petitioning the Department of State Services (DSS) this morning to
investigate the origin of a doctored quote that has been tearing through Nigerian social
media for the past 48 hours.
The quote — attached to a graphic bearing Akpabio’s photograph and official Senate
designation — reads: “Northerners, you will be the ones to suffer the most, if you allow
Tinubu to lose the election.” It has been shared millions of times across X, Facebook and
WhatsApp, and has drawn sharp condemnations from Arewa youth groups, the Northern
Elders Forum and at least three sitting governors from the North West.
Akpabio, in a statement released just after 6am Abuja time, described the quote as “a
complete fabrication” and “calculated incitement designed to manufacture fear, resentment
and hostility between Northern Nigerians and a national leader from the South.” He
challenged anyone in possession of the audio, video or event where he allegedly spoke those
words to produce it.
In the petition submitted to the DSS Director-General, Akpabio’s legal team names one
individual — Engr. Ibrahim Umar Ammar, whom the petition associates with the Atiku
Abubakar Campaign Organisation — as the alleged originator of the graphic. It requests a
full forensic trace of the image, the servers it first appeared on, and any coordinated
dissemination network behind it.
The Atiku Campaign Organisation has denied any involvement, calling Akpabio’s petition “a
distraction from the real anger Nigerians feel about the economy.” A spokesperson
demanded that the Senate President “first show the quote is fake with the same evidentiary
standard he now demands from others.”
The controversy lands at a politically radioactive moment. Campaign activity for the
February 6, 2027 general election formally opened this week, with governorship and House
of Assembly candidates fanning out across all six geopolitical zones. Any narrative
suggesting an ethnic or regional threat from the ruling APC’s most powerful lawmaker is
exactly the kind of story that dominates a campaign season. Northern political voices have already begun weighing in. Kaduna-based analyst Kabiru
Yusuf told Channels Television this morning that even if the quote is proven false, “the
damage to trust between the Senate leadership and the North is real, because it plays into a
suspicion that already exists.” Others have gone further; a Sokoto assembly member
described the graphic as “digital arson.”
Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga issued a short statement saying President Bola
Tinubu “stands with Nigerians of every region” and had personally directed the security
agencies to treat the matter “with the seriousness incitement of this kind demands.”
The DSS is expected to open a formal file within 24 hours, according to sources at the
Service. Cybercrime units at both the DSS and the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime
Centre are reportedly coordinating on image-provenance tracing — a capability Nigeria has
built up significantly since the 2023 election cycle exposed how quickly fake quotes could
move markets and mobs.
There is a wider business dimension too. The naira slipped fractionally in early trading on
rumours that political instability was building ahead of the campaign season. Analysts at
Coronation Merchant Bank noted that “any narrative implying regional political violence
adds a risk premium to sovereign paper,” and cited the fake-quote story specifically.
For ordinary Nigerians already contending with fuel prices, food inflation and campaign season noise, the episode is a reminder that in 2026 a single doctored image can force the
country’s number-three politician to call in the secret police. Whether the DSS produces a
suspect quickly, or the story fades into the next viral cycle, will shape how confidently other
public figures push back the next time a fake quote goes viral.
Akpabio, for his part, ended his statement with a line clearly aimed at the digital operatives
on all sides of Nigeria’s political divide: “You may weaponise a lie for one news cycle. You
will not weaponise it for a nation.
