|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
As president of one of the world’s major democracies, Donald Trump made headlines several times in 2025, particularly on global issues, including those affecting Africa and Nigeria.
After his inauguration as the 47th president of the United States in January 2025, Trump signed a series of executive orders and made decisions that have affected nearly every sphere of human life, including immigration, the military, the economy, and healthcare.
US residents, migrants, potential migrants, and other groups worldwide were concerned about how these policies and decisions might affect their lives and turned to social platforms for clarity. Unfortunately, there were lots of false narratives being peddled on these platforms using Trump’s name to gain authenticity and credibility.
DUBAWA fact-checked several of such claims during the year. Here are the top seven claims around Trump that we debunked this year.
- Donald Trump threatened to remove Tinubu over alleged genocide
In October 2025, Donald Trump expressed displeasure over the alleged killing of Christians in Nigeria, blaming Islamic radicals for the violent killings. He tagged Nigeria “a country of particular concern”, adding that his administration will take further steps to put an end to the targeted attacks.
Consequently, some claims flooded social media, one of which is a video shared by popular social media influencer Martins Otse (VeryDarkMan), which showed Trump threatening to send the US military to Nigeria to destroy Boko Haram, and giving an ultimatum to Bola Tinubu to resolve the crisis or risk losing his position as Nigeria’s president.
Fact-checking tools confirmed that the US president’s features were digitally altered in that clip. Find more information here.
- Trump proposed $30 billion Iran nuclear plan
Major news outlet CNN and some social media pages claimed Donald Trump has started discussions to help Iran access $30 billion to build a civilian nuclear program funded by Gulf allies. The reports suggested that, despite the strained relationship between the two countries, this initiative by the Trump administration was allegedly aimed at easing sanctions and facilitating secret contacts through back channels in Qatar and Oman.
Although the sources cited by CNN were unnamed, and the social media pages that shared the claim could not provide any proof, the claim quickly gained credibility and widespread acceptance among some social media users, sparking serious debate in other quarters.
DUBAWA’s findings showed that Trump had refuted the claim on his Truth Social Account, noting that he had never considered such ideas and labelling the narrative a ‘hoax’. More information here.
- Trump signed an executive order banning visas for Nigerians
Weeks after Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the US, a viral social media post claimed that Trump had ordered a visa ban on Nigerians. Users asserted that the president made such a bold decision to encourage professionals to stay in their home country and work to develop it.
The claim elicited mixed reactions from other social media users; while some applauded the decision, others criticised the US president’s stance on immigration. However, when DUBAWA researched the claim, we found it was based on speculation rather than evidence.
Additionally, the claim may have been repurposed from the 2020 travel ban policy of Trump’s first administration, which affected Nigerian citizens seeking to live permanently in the United States. At the same time, the US cited Nigeria’s failure to meet its security and information-sharing standards. Read more here.
- Trump comments on Biafra’s liberation
Another video that went viral during the first few weeks of Trump’s current administration showed the US President commenting on the marginalisation of the Igbo people in Nigeria. In the viral clip, Trump purportedly said that the Igbos have been ill-treated by the ‘northern Muslim’ leaders, though the country enjoys the natural resources from the region.
Trump also allegedly called for the release of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). DUBAWA’s analysis of the video showed that it had been manipulated using Artificial Intelligence. At the top-right corner of the video was a watermark, “Elon Talks,” a platform that creates AI-generated videos of celebrities. Read more here.
- Trump declared a Tesla ban in the US amid a feud with Elon Musk
In May 2025, Donald Trump’s relationship with business mogul Elon Musk began to deteriorate. The rift started after Musk criticised Trump’s massive tax and domestic policy bill, threatening to create a new political party if the agenda bill passed. In return, Trump threatened to terminate Elon’s government subsidies and Contracts.
This noisy dispute continued for weeks, with some people calling for a peaceful resolution. Amid the hullabaloo, a claim went viral on social media that Trump had declared a ban on the production of Tesla in the United States, citing alleged ‘backstabbing’ by Musk.
When DUBAWA ran the video backing the claim through deepfake detectors, we found that it had been digitally manipulated. Also, we found no evidence of such a ban in official records/reports. Find more details here.
- Trump orders the sale of African leaders’ properties, children’s deportation
One of the ridiculous claims that trended on the African social media space in 2025 is that Donald Trump ordered the sale of African politicians’ assets in the United States. The claimant, who made a post on Facebook, also alleged that the US president called for the deportation of the children of African politicians studying in the country.
However, when DUBAWA checked, there was no such report on credible media platforms. We also reviewed the websites of the White House and the US Office of Foreign Assets Control and found no announcement relating to the claim. Find more details via this link.
- Trump gave Traore a 24-hour deadline over Burkina Faso gold?
A viral Facebook post claimed that Trump gave Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso a 24-hour ultimatum to cede 90% of the country’s gold and oil reserves to the United States; failure to comply with this ultimatum may result in war.
Some social media users believed the post and urged African youth to join the military and resist foreign interference. But AI detection tools showed that the video from which the claim was extracted contained elements of manipulation. The researcher also employed Google Dorking techniques to identify reports on the issue; however, we found no reports in credible media outlets. Read more.
