Old video of Nigerian president dancing was filmed in 2023, not during 2024 stampedes

On December 21, 2024, an X account shared a video with a caption that reads: “Bola Tinubu a critical failure in governance dancing and celebrating in Lagos State while Nigerians are dying struggling for a half bag of rice.”

Image

Screenshot showing the misleading X video, taken December 23, 2024

In the 22-second clip, Tinubu is dancing to a song played by a live band. 

The clip has been reposted almost 400 times after being published by an account called “Peter Obi Grassroots Mobilization”. Peter Obi was the second runner-up in the 2023 presidential poll in Nigeria. 

The account’s feed shows posts critical of Tinubu but favourable to Obi. 

Faced with skyrocketing food prices, many Nigerians have been forced to queue for charity handouts for hours just to get enough to eat, leading to several deadly stampedes in December, in which a total of 67 people died. 

However, the video of Tinubu dancing predates these tragedies.

Campaign video

Using Google Lens to conduct a reverse image search on a keyframe in the video, AFP Fact Check traced the original clip to a 2023 video posted on YouTube by Nigerian broadcaster TVC (archived here).

“APC Presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu dances 'buga' at the town hall meeting with youths in Abuja,” reads the caption of the TVC video uploaded on January 6, 2023. 

At the time, Tinubu held a series of town hall meetings as part of his campaign in the run-up to the February 2023 presidential election. 

From charity to tragedy

On December 18, 2024, people queued up as early as 5 am for a food and cash handout at a school in the southwestern city of Ibadan. An overwhelming turnout led to a stampede that killed 35 children and seriously injured six others (archived here).

Then, on December 21, 2024, 22 people were killed in a stampede as people queued outside a centre distributing rice in the southern town of Okija, police said (archived here).

On the same day, another stampede outside a church handing out food in the capital Abuja killed at least 10 people, prompting Tinubu to clear his schedule in the wake of the tragedies.

A statement from presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga said Tinubu had “cancelled all his official events in Lagos [on December 21]... in honour of the stampede victims” (archived here).

“In a season of joy and celebration, we grieve with fellow citizens mourning the painful losses of their loved ones. Our prayers of divine comfort and healing are with them,” the statement quoted Tinubu as saying.