Obasanjo. Source: Biological Legacy and Research Foundation
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Claim: A Facebook user claimed that Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria, is dead, and left behind a mysterious digital investment platform for his family to inherit.
Verdict: FALSE. No credible media platform reported the veteran’s death or the availability of his will. Also, analyses revealed that the website is a malicious duplicate of the original Vanguard newspaper, created to promote an investment platform.
Full Text
Decades after leaving office as Nigeria’s president, Olusegun Obasanjo celebrated his 89th birthday with the country’s political bigwigs on March 5, 2026.
A day later, a Facebook page, Finances of Countries, shared a sponsored ad (archived here) claiming that the former president is dead. The claim’s caption reads, “After Olusegun Obasanjo’s death, his family was shocked by the unexpected decision he left behind.”
A website link was posted along with the claim, with an image of a court document serving as the link’s thumbnail. The thumbnail also stated that a hidden clause inserted in the former president’s will would shock everyone.
As of March 14, 2026, the post gained over 9,700 reactions, 476 comments, and 154 reshares.
While most comments expressed disbelief in the post’s authenticity, DUBAWA found some comments that showed a few Facebook users believed the claim.
Alamin Yusuf said, “No one will last forever.” Juliana Ilogho questioned, “When did he die?”
The information’s virality and its implications prompted DUBAWA to fact-check the claim.
Website’s content and red flags
DUBAWA checked the attached website and found a supposed exclusive interview, claimed to have been published in the Vanguard newspaper, a foremost Nigerian newspaper. However, we observed several anomalies that caused raised eyebrows over the claim’s authenticity.
The headline says, “Olusegun Obasanjo reveals his will: instead of billions, his children will inherit a mysterious digital platform he kept hidden for years!.” However, DUBAWA discovered the story had no byline, and this raised the first red flag.
When we used Scamadviser to analyse the link’s authenticity, we received a low trust score, indicating that the link in the sponsored advert is likely unsafe.
The analysis revealed that the suspicious website may be a scam, and users should be cautious as it may be used for phishing.
We also observed that the link to the website displayed “alpsspringwater.com,” despite showing the Vanguard newspaper’s logo. When we clicked the Vanguard logo, hoping it would redirect us to the newspaper’s homepage, it instead opened a trading platform called PrimeAura. The trading platform was also the one that Obasanjo supposedly vouched for in his alleged interview.
The fishy trading platform’s homepage
The homepage also featured glowing remarks from prominent Nigerians, including Aliko Dangote, Tony Elumelu, and Femi Otedola.
We used WhoIs Lookup to analyse the domain owner and found that it was initially registered on March 10, 2015, and updated on March 11, 2026, by 123-Reg Limited. The registrar is a British domain and web hosting company founded in 2000.
We found no credible media report of Obasanjo’s death as of March 15, 2026. Also, no credible media platform reported his endorsement of any trading platform.
We also ran a Reverse Image Search of the picture in the supposed interview and traced it to a 56-minute, 44-second interview he had with Rainbow Book Club on Apr. 19, 2025. The interview was from the ninth episode of Talking Books Africa. This interview was hosted by Tarari Kalango, where he discussed his book, “My Watch.” At no point in the interview did he discuss his will or family inheritance.
Meta’s poor advert moderation
The news of Obasanjo’s death or his supposed investment in a fishy digital platform is not the first maliciously sponsored Facebook advert that DUBAWA has fact-checked. Meta’s platforms, particularly Facebook, have become a fertile breeding ground for “celeb-bait” scams.
We have found several instances where popular Nigerians were falsely linked to malicious trading platforms, including Obasanjo, who was linked to PrimeAura. Kadaria Ahmed, a veteran journalist, supposedly advertised ParagonixPrimeX on Instagram, while Coinsterix was linked to Akinwunmi Adesina, the former president of the African Development Bank.
Seun Okinbaloye, a prominent broadcast journalist with Channels Television, was also claimed to have vouched for Jau Crypto in a manipulated sponsored video. A Facebook page impersonated the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to run sponsored ads promoting Crowd1, another malicious money-doubling scheme.
A video of Samuel Achilefu, a Nigerian-American biomedical professor, was once manipulated in a sponsored Facebook post using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to promote a natural solution for high blood pressure.
While these scams result in financial losses among other damages for Nigerians, they represent a lucrative stream of income for Meta. These campaigns follow a similar well-documented blueprint by weaponising names and likenesses of prominent and respected figures to create a sense of urgency.
They regularly use fabricated reports of death, arrest, or a “secret” financial windfall. Yet, Meta overlooks the sinister strategy and allows such advertisements to flourish without caution.
When we checked the Meta Ad Library, DUBAWA found three different adverts about Obasanjo’s death on a Facebook page, each with a different library identification number (ID) here, here, and here. As of March 15, 2026, the budget and reach of the adverts, which started running on March 6, 2026, have yet to be displayed. However, the advert library showed that the sponsored post ran on all Meta platforms, including Instagram, Threads, and Messenger.
Meta publicly maintains a “zero-tolerance” policy toward fraud, but the company continues to pocket significant sums from the very actors it claims to oppose. Some internal confidential self-appraisal documents even revealed that Meta is knowingly raking in about $7 billion annually from fraudulent sponsored adverts. The document revealed that Meta allows fraudulent adverts to run if the advertiser is willing to pay a higher advert rate. Meta users will also encounter more of these scam adverts when they click on such content, due to the platform’s ad personalisation system.
Meta requiring a high frequency of organic reports before banning a scam advert puts users at risk because the advert continues to generate impressions and reach. By the time fact-checkers like DUBAWA flag a scam post, the advertiser has already harvested data or funds, and Meta has processed the advert payment.
Conclusion
DUBAWA found no credible media organisation that reported Obasanjo’s death or his endorsement of a trading platform. The interview attributed to Obasanjo is fake, and the claim is a mischievous attempt to promote a phoney trading platform named PrimeAura.
