A video showing graphic violence is circulating on social media with false claims about Nigeria. An X user posted the footage on June 21, 2026, claiming it depicted Fulani militias attacking a Nigerian community.
The original post garnered massive engagement online. It collected about 1.2 million views, 24,000 likes, 10,000 bookmarks and 4,900 reposts within days.
Other users amplified the video across platforms. Daniel Somtochukwu and several others shared it while suggesting it showed recent Nigerian violence.
Advocate.ng conducted a thorough verification of the claim. We used Open Source Intelligence tools to investigate the footage's origins.
Keyframes were extracted from the video using InVID, a specialized verification tool. Those frames then underwent reverse image searches on Google Lens and other platforms.
What we found contradicts the social media narrative entirely. The video doesn't show any recent attack in Nigeria whatsoever.
Our searches revealed older versions of the same footage online. An earlier post appeared on June 13, 2025, describing it as an armed attack.
Another user shared the video on November 7, 2025, claiming it showed Nigerian violence. But each post used identical footage with different narratives.
A military video blogger called Sham Lions_EL posted another version on May 11, 2026. His version included a Chinese-language caption providing crucial information.
According to the caption's translation, the footage showed something entirely different. It depicted JNIM members executing civilians during a Mali attack on April 25.
JNIM is an al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group operating across the Sahel region. The group has been linked to multiple attacks in West Africa.
Our investigation confirms the footage predates current Nigerian security incidents. Available evidence clearly connects it to violence in Mali, not Nigeria.
The video has circulated online since at least 2025. Nigerian social media users misappropriated it only recently for political narratives.
Verdict: The claim is misleading and factually incorrect. Sharing this video as evidence of Fulani militia attacks in Nigeria spreads dangerous misinformation.
