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Claim: A Facebook user shared a video of Donald Trump allegedly criticising Burkina Faso’s leader, Ibrahim Traoré, declaring that African mineral resources belong to the U.S. and France.
Verdict: False. The video is a deepfake. Our forensic tools and reverse image search investigation confirm that the visuals and audio were digitally manipulated.
Full Text
Donald Trump has become a frequent character in false narratives targeting Nigerian audiences. His face and voice are often used in manipulated videos and AI-generated audio to push political or social messages. For example, one viral video claimed Trump ordered the Nigerian government to release Nnamdi Kanu. But DUBAWA found the clip was digitally altered.
In another widely shared video, Trump praises Peter Obi and attacks President Tinubu. This, too, was false as the footage had been taken from an unrelated 2017 interview and repurposed with a fake voiceover.
A Facebook user, @Aminah Yusuf, recently shared a video on May 16, 2025, showing Donald Trump making a speech about Africans and Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré. He claimed that African resources belong to “them”.
In the one-minute, 36-second clip, he said, “Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso is becoming a traitor, and I can’t sit back. I watch him unite Africa because the unity of Africa will enable our children to travel to Africa for greener pastures in the near future. Hiding in Russia won’t save you. All that can save you is to listen to the demand of the USA or France.”
As the video nears its end, he adds, “No matter what, we will save Burkina Faso just like we saved Libya from Gaddafi and allowed democracy. No African country should be ruled by the Military. African mineral resources belong to us.”
As of May 21, 2025, the video had only 50 views and one like. However, the same post was found on Facebook here, here, here, and here.
Several red flags, such as unsynced lip movement and mismatched words and expressions, made DUBAWA investigate the video to determine whether it was real or manipulated.
Verification
We subjected the clip to Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector. While the Facebook post played, the tool analysed the audio and scored it 1 out of 100 for authenticity, meaning the voice was a deepfake.
DUBAWA then analysed the video’s visual part using InVid’s forensic feature, which showed that the frame had been manipulated. One of the most telling signs was the presence of irregular patches scattered across the image and concentrated on the face, suit, and background areas.
These patches are visual cues generated by the Error Level Analysis (ELA) or Noise Analysis tools within InVid, which point out parts of an image that differ in compression levels or noise patterns.
An untouched or original video would typically show a consistent pattern throughout the frame. However, in this image, the face, parts of the clothing, and the background exhibited inconsistent compression, showing that those areas may have been digitally altered or overlaid with synthetic elements, a common trait in deepfake technology.
DUBAWA took a screenshot from the Trump video and ran it through Google Lens. This led us to the original version, posted on a YouTube channel on September 4, 2024. In that clip, Trump urged Americans to vote in the U.S. presidential election. There was no mention of Burkina Faso, Africa, African resources, or any of the statements in the viral video.
Conclusion
DUBAWA examined the video using deepfake detection tools, forensic analysis, and reverse image search. Findings confirmed that the voice and visuals were manipulated. The claim is, therefore, false.
