Fake news in Nigeria predates the internet era. The Nigerian rumour mill, as characterized by Sola Odunfa in a 2009 article for BBC Africa, gained ascendancy during the country’s long periods of post-independence military rule when the formal news media was constrained in what it could say. In this information vacuum, Nigeria’s offline rumour mill became a “wild industry which respects no conventions or authority or checks.” Fast forward to 2026 and the same characterization of Nigeria’s digital information ecosystem applies, with fake news not only rampant but also offering significant economic opportunity for those seeking to create or shape the narrative.
A Mature Industry
I spoke to several influencers in Nigeria who are making the most of these opportunities. “Bank workers earn 120,000 nairas a month [less than $US100],” Salisu Kargi Usman, a Kaduna-based influencer, told me in an interview. “I can double that in a week.” Usman was keen to stress that money is a key reason why he continues to operate in the space. For those with substantive follower networks across platforms like Facebook and TikTok, there are opportunities to generate income through platform-enabled monetization schemes that reward extensive sharing of content, often regardless of its veracity. But for actors with the networks and the skills to manipulate digital content — using voice notes, pictures, videos and even what appear to be organic conversations — significant opportunities exist in Nigeria’s growing informal service industries providing digital strategies.
“Politicians need protection; their opponents need destroying. We deliver both,” said Yusuf Abacha. A self-styled digital strategist, Abacha runs a team of 10 writers, editors and bot managers in Maiduguri, a city in the northeastern state of Borno, and aspires to convert the operation into a legally registered communications agency to strengthen perceptions of its legitimacy. Clients seeking to enhance their own standing or discredit others often utilize his team’s services through proxies, understanding the likely implications and the need to maintain a distance to minimize the risk of any backlash. Adnan Gama, an influencer in the city of Kano, explained that contracts are often framed as being for community outreach or research services, but the reality is that “we are engaged in narrative warfare,” a warfare that increasingly utilizes artificial intelligence (AI).
Integrating AI
AI is not replacing Nigeria’s influencers and infopreneurs; rather, it is strengthening their ability to pollute the information ecosystem with false content. A Fact Check Africa investigation shows how AI-generated deepfakes are cloning the voices and faces of trusted Nigerian figures, pastors, broadcasters and institutions to promote scams and fabricated opportunities. These entrepreneurs are not a new set of actors but an evolution of existing ones, now equipped with tools that manufacture credibility at scale. As a result, even digitally savvy users face growing difficulty distinguishing what is real from what is engineered. When it comes to manipulating existing visual or audio content, or even in creating this type of content for an event that has not actually happened, AI can play a supportive role. “With a few AI prompts, I can produce a governor addressing a rally or a protest scene that never happened,” explained Aminu Miftahu, an information influence entrepreneur in Kaduna, who also said that by adding flaws — blurry elements and shaky camera effects — in post-content editing, he can mimic the imperfections that Nigerians expect. The idea that perfection is suspicious is a view shared by Abdulrahman Imam, a digital manipulation expert in Kano, who stressed that “hybrid creations [those primarily generated using AI] need human tweaks. I drop local slang, religious phrases and even typos. Those little human touches fool people better than perfect grammar.”
Creating a sense of organic interaction and engagement is another key part of the digital manipulator’s skill set, one being made easier and faster by AI tools. Adeyemi Abduwahab, a Lagos-based influencer, explained the importance of these interaction cascades. “One bot posts, another supports, a third argues, a fourth fact-checks. Outsiders think it’s a real debate. In reality, it’s just me playing chess with myself.” However, he was keen to stress that if bots post too uniformly, they look fake, and this is, again, where a human touch is needed. “We program delays, include typos and emojis, use slang and even generate late-night ramblings,” which makes the content appear as human as possible and generates engagement with it by users. “Platforms are looking for robotic behaviour [accounts can be removed by Facebook for coordinated inauthentic behaviour, for example], so I make my robots act human. Every account has its own fingerprint: a unique browser, rotating IP addresses, even fake sleep patterns. And bots don’t just post, they are trained to comment on, and like posts, to celebrate birthdays and so on,” explained the Lagos-based content manipulator.
Utilizing local languages in both written and oral forms, as well as slang, is a critical part of ensuring that content is aligned with context, and large language models are making this easier, enhancing content creators’ ability to engage in languages such as Nigerian Pidgin, Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba. In fact, Nigeria’s influence entrepreneurs are part of the ecosystem, training these AI platforms by feeding models with thousands of WhatsApp conversations taking place in a mix of local languages. As a result, when a bot replies “omo, na wa o” (a phrase combining Yoruba and Nigerian Pidgin, meaning “Wow, this is too much”), it’s very difficult to discern that it is not a human user. A similar approach can be used to replicate the voice and language of prominent individuals in ways that sound authentic with a few manual tweaks. “AI automates 70 percent, humans do the rest,” claimed during an interview an influencer based in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, with that proportional split likely to increasingly lean toward AI as itscapabilities grow stronger. This is enabling anyone with a connection to enter the space. A Kaduna-based content creator, Ibrahim, popularly known as Iromba, explained, “It’s funny; people imagine secret rooms, but sometimes disinformation is just one boy in Kaduna [aided by AI].”
Regulation is Lagging
Platforms and fact-checkers, already playing catch-up, are being further distanced by the combination of technology and digital savviness deployed by fake news entrepreneurs. A single doctored picture or audio clip that goes viral on WhatsApp is very difficult to undo, even if fact-checkers can eventually prove it to be false and can get that information to circulate widely. Platforms are also finding it difficult to create systems that prevent or catch falsehoods from circulating. “Their systems catch English posts, sometimes. But Hausa, Yoruba, Pidgin? Rarely. That’s where disinformation thrives,” explained influencer Bilkisu Sarina in Abuja. There are also questions about the extent to which platforms are really motivated to tackle the problem, given that some of the monetization components actually reward virality rather than accuracy.
Nigeria’s disinformation landscape is no longer incidental — it is organized, monetized and now amplified by AI. What began as informal rumour has evolved into a deliberate system of narrative manipulation that can shape public perception at scale and at speed. The risk is clear: if left unchecked, it will continue to erode trust, distort democratic processes and weaken state authority.
Government response must match this reality, and the Government of Nigeria, led by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) alongside agencies such as the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the National Orientation Agency (NOA) and the National Cybersecurity Coordination Centre (NCCC), is steadily building capacity and coordinating a national response. This requires a tightly aligned, intelligence-led approach: the NITDA driving digital policy, standards and platform accountability; the NBC strengthening content regulation and enforcement; the NCC ensuring compliance within the telecom ecosystem; the NOA leading public awareness and behavioural change; and the NCCC providing strategic coordination and cybersecurity oversight.
This approach is designed to correct the current imbalances, where virality often outpaces the truth, by strengthening platform accountability and enabling rapid, credible public communication that gets ahead of false narratives. Equally important is sustained investment in local-language monitoring and long-term digital literacy, where the real contest for trust and legitimacy is increasingly being fought.
For other nations, Nigeria offers both a cautionary note and a playbook. Disinformation thrives where technology, incentives and weak oversight intersect, but it can be contained through coordinated action, localized solutions and political will. What's at stake is no longer just the accuracy of information, but control of the narrative space and, ultimately, the stability of the state.
