With election fever ramping up in Nigeria, candidates are holding rallies in major cities and looking to celebrities for public backing. One video circulating on social media purportedly shows Hollywood stars declaring their support for the Labour Party's presidential candidate, Peter Obi. But this claim is false: AFP Fact Check found that the clip is a doctored mash-up of episodes from a US online series, in which celebrities answer the internet’s most searched questions about them. Obi does not feature in any of the original videos.
“Peter Obi movement has gone beyond Nigeria and Africa. Vote peter Obi 2023 (sic),” reads the caption of a TikTok video posted on November 22, 2022, and shared more than 3,000 times.
The 49-second clip shows a succession of popular Hollywood celebrities holding up whiteboards purportedly reading “Yes, it makes sense to vote Peter Obi in 2023”.
Obi has emerged as one of the top three contenders among 18 candidates looking to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023 when the country holds general elections. Obi enjoys large support from the youth.
It was also shared on Twitter by popular Nigerian musician Charles Chukwuemeka Oputa and retweeted more than 5,000 times by some of his 159,000 followers before being deleted. Charly Boy, as he is widely known, is one of the Nigerian celebrities supporting Obi.
But the claim that Hollywood has lent its voice to Obi is false.
Using video verification tool InVID-WeVerify, AFP Fact Check...
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