Several posts on social media claimed that US news channel CNN did not recognise Bola Tinubu of Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the country's president-elect. Instead, these posts alleged that the TV station announced the Labour Party’s Peter Obi as the winner of the February election. But the claims are false: the photo in the posts, from a 2020 CNN broadcast, was digitally doctored to include images of Obi and Nigeria’s coat of arms.

“CNN refused to acknowledge Tinubu as president-elect, projecting Peter Obi as the winner to be announced,” reads the post shared on March 1, 2023.

It said that the CNN projection came “even after INEC announced Tinubu as the winner of the 2023 election”. The acronym refers to Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission.

A screenshot of the false post, taken on March 2, 2023

The post features three photos, including one of CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer in front of a screen showing a photo of Obi with the words “elected president” written beside it.

The Facebook page that shared the post has a history of spreading disinformation about the APC and has been the subject of past debunks by AFP Fact Check (see here, here and here).

Nigeria went to the polls to choose a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari on February 25, 2023.

Nigeria’s electoral body announced Tinubu as the winner, beating Labour’s Obi and Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the leading opposition People’s Democratic Party.

The ballot was marred by...

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