Video of cleric asking Nigerian government to include bandits in budget is manipulated
- Published on December 9, 2025 at 19:12
- 3 min read
- By Oluseyi AWOJULUGBE, AFP Nigeria
Insecurity in Nigeria has been a major topic since the US government designated the West African country as a "country of particular concern" over claims of religious persecution. A video shared on social media claims to show prominent Muslim cleric Ahmad Gumi asking the government to allocate funds for bandits in the national budget. But the clip is altered; the audio was replaced with an AI-generated voice, and the original video shows a 2021 interview in which Gumi attributed Nigeria’s insecurity problem to a mix of ethnic conflicts and criminality.
"'Attacking the bandits will be a mistake. Negotiate with them instead. Include them in the budget. Give the bandits whatever they want' — Sheikh Gumi tells Nigerians," reads the caption of a video published on X.
The video has been shared about 1,800 times since it was published on November 25, 2025.
"The cause of all this chaos is because they are not included in the budget. So USA, attacking them will cause more chaos in the country," Gumi appears to say in the video. "The best solution is negotiation with them, and they should be included in the budget. Only negotiations can solve these issues. Give them whatever they want for peace to reign."
The video has also appeared in other posts on Facebook and Instagram with similar claims.
US President Donald Trump announced on October 31, 2025, that he was naming Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) -- a State Department designation for nations accused of religious freedom violations -- for the killing of Christians by “radical Islamists” (archived here).
The decision followed weeks of coordinated social media posts and months of lobbying by US officials claiming Christians in Africa's most populous country are facing a “genocide” -- a claim the Nigerian government denies (archived here and here).
Gumi, a popular Islamic cleric and former army captain, has long argued that some bandits are initially driven by a sense of injustice after losing relatives and belongings in old inter-communal conflicts (archived here).
He regularly acts as a mediator to secure the release of kidnap victims and has stirred controversy by advocating for a blanket amnesty for bandits (archived here).
However, Gumi did not ask the government to include bandits in the national budget.
2021 interview
A reverse image search led to a 2021 interview with Nigerian broadcaster Channels TV, four years before Trump threatened military intervention in Nigeria (archived here).
In the 24-minute interview, Gumi said Nigeria’s insecurity problem was rooted in ethnic conflicts and criminality that got out of hand. Contrary to the clip circulating online, he did not mention including bandits in the national budget.
At the 16'50' mark of the interview, his hand movements and the background match the six-second mark of the video circulated on social media.
However, the audio does not match.
The video shows clear signs of alterations, including pauses that signal editing and out-of-sync lip movements in some sections.
We analysed the X clip's audio using the Hiya voice cloning detection tool, which suggested a 99% probability that the audio was AI-generated.
The altered clip includes a "Prime Entertainment" logo.
A Facebook keyword search for the name led to a page that now operates as "Prime News Hub". The page transparency section shows its name was changed on December 9, 2025.
The same logo appears on several reels on the page and was included in a post dated October 24, 2025.
While we could not find the original post on the page, a different user shared what appeared to be a screenshot of it. The "AI Info" label appears on it as per Facebook’s standard disclaimer for AI content (archived here).
AFP Fact Check has previously debunked other claims about insecurity in Nigeria, including a video claiming to show a terror attack on a church.
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