Police arrest alleged creator of fake Tinubu audio clip

The Nigeria Police Force has detained Ifechukwu Dennis, the person alleged to have produced and distributed an AI‑generated voice note that was falsely presented as a leaked recording of President Bola Tinubu.

Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, announced the arrest in a post on X on Thursday.

“The IGP crack team has arrested Ifechukwu Dennis who originated the fake voice that he passed on to his gullible targets as President Tinubu’s voice,” he said.

Onanuga added that Mr Ifechukwu was arrested in Benin and that the police would issue a statement on the case.

The arrest represents a major development in a controversy that began on 27 May 2026, when a viral video featuring social media commentator Martins Vincent Otse, known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), was circulated.

The manipulated clip contained an AI‑generated voice that mimicked President Tinubu, making several contentious claims, including that insecurity in the South‑East was deliberate, that he had pressured Peter Obi to withdraw from the 2023 presidential race, and that he was indifferent to the hardships faced by Nigerians.

Investigations by several media organisations later determined that VeryDarkMan was not responsible for publishing the fabricated audio.

Reports indicated that an unidentified individual had taken footage from VeryDarkMan’s original Instagram post, overlaid it with the AI‑generated voice recording, and then redistributed the altered version across social media platforms.

Despite the findings that cleared the activist of involvement, the Presidency initially sought legal action against him over the incident.

At the time, Onanuga described the episode as “a clear case of egregious abuse of the social media platform,” a stance that drew criticism after fact‑checkers established that the original video shared by VeryDarkMan did not contain the fabricated audio.

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