Video does not show Nigerian fraudster Hushpuppi at Afrobeats star Davido’s wedding

Published on August 18, 2025 at 12:24
2 min read
By Oluseyi AWOJULUGBE, AFP Nigeria

Several years after his trial in the United States, false claims continue to circulate about Ramon Abbas, a Nigerian man convicted of a multimillion-dollar scam. Posts circulating on social media claim that Abbas, popularly known as Hushpuppi, was granted a temporary release from prison to attend the recent wedding of Afrobeats star David ‘Davido’ Adeleke. However, the claim is false: The video is not recent. The clip first appeared online in February 2020, and was taken at the wedding of Davido’s brother.

“Hushpuppi granted a brief release to attend Davido’s Miami wedding, sprays $100 bills, then returns,” reads the caption of a video shared widely on Facebook.

The clip shows Abbas throwing dollar bills at a couple. Nigerian Afrobeats star Davido is also seen dancing with the couple.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post, taken on August 14, 2025

Abbas is currently serving an 11-year jail term in the United States after pleading guilty to charges of money laundering targeted at law firms and an English Premier League club (archived here).

The charges against him were filed by the US Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles after his extradition from Dubai in July 2020.

Davido, a Nigerian singer widely regarded as one of the most influential Afrobeats artists, recently held a wedding ceremony in Miami with his longtime partner, Chioma Rowland (archived here).

Although the wedding had an elite guest list including Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, American gospel musician Kirk Franklin and several other entertainers, Abbas was not reported to have attended the wedding (archived here).

2020 video

The first sign that the video was not from Davido’s wedding was that the bride seen in the clip bears little resemblance to Rowland.

The bride in the video is standing next to a man in a tuxedo while Davido stands in front of them.

A collage showing the couple seen in the video (left) and a screenshot from Nigeria’s Punch newspaper showing Davido’s wedding (right)

AFP Fact Check conducted a reverse image search on keyframes extracted from the video.

This led to a video published on YouTube in February 2020. The title of the video indicates that it was recorded at the wedding of Davido's brother, Adewale Adeleke, who is the chairman of HKN Music (archived here).

Other reports from the wedding, containing pictures, show the same couple seen in the video and identify them as Adeleke and his wife, Kani Ekanem (archived here).

A collage showing the couple seen in the video (left) and a screenshot from a local site showing the wedding of Davido’s brother (right)

AFP Fact Check has previously debunked claims about Hushpuppi here and here.

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