“If you google, you will see a story of how a US President placed an arms embargo on Nigeria fighting ISIS then Boko Haram because the African nation passed a homophobic bill (sic),” reads an X post shared more than 800 times since February 15, 2025.
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Screenshot of the false X post, taken on February 24, 2025
Boko Haram and other extremist groups have waged a 15-year insurgency in northeastern Nigeria that has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced millions (archived here).
“I get it; minority rights are essential, but Boko Haram?” adds the post written by Kalu Aja, an X user who shares economy-related content with more than 300,000 followers.
Aja links to a 2015 article quoting a former US congressman as saying the Barack Obama administration “refused to help Nigeria with Boko Haram” because of the anti-gay stance of the Nigerian government (archived here).
A year earlier, the Nigerian government criminalised public displays of affection between same-sex couples and restricted the work of civil society organisations that defend the rights of gay people (archived here).
However, this was not the reason the United States cited for blocking the sale of weapons to Nigeria a decade ago.
Over the years, the Nigerian army has been accused of various human rights violations (archived here).
Thousands have also been killed in accidental airstrikes by the Nigerian Air Force (archived here).
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