Ahead of the May inauguration of Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s new leader, a video has been shared on social media with claims that it shows a Nigerian military band rehearsing for the occasion. But the claim is false: the video shows a Ghanaian military band rehearsing a Nigerian hit song ahead of the country’s independence day celebrations.
“Joint armed forces band practicing for the swearing in of the first city boy to become Nigeria’s President (sic),” reads a tweet shared on March 20, 2023.
“City Boy” is a nickname that refers to Tinubu, who will be sworn in on May 29, 2023, succeeding President Muhammadu Buhari.
Retweeted more than 110 times, the tweet was published by a known supporter of Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress. It includes a video showing uniformed military forces playing musical instruments.
Before 1999, when Nigeria returned to democracy, military regimes held sway for decades, including a junta led by Buhari (archived here). The country has seen six coups, most of them bloody, since its independence in 1960 (archived here).
Armed forces are a fixture at inaugurations of national and state governments in Nigeria (archived here), and they are expected to be part of Tinubu’s ceremony.
The Nigerian army has an official band corps (archived here), which regularly performs at events.
But the claim that the video shows the Nigerian military rehearsing for the upcoming inauguration is false.
The clip in the false tweet features the...
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