Politics
FACT-CHECK: Viral Video of President Tinubu, Daughter and Minister Umahi Being Splashed Dirty Water on Bad Road is AI-Generated
CLAIM: President Tinubu and his entourage were stuck, embarrassed due to the bad condition of coastal road
VERDICT: FALSE
Background:
A video circulating on social media claiming President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his daughter Chief Folasade Tinubu-Ojo, Minister of Works David Umahi and security aides were embarrassed on a bad road when Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), who was in a truck, splashed dirty water from a pothole on them.
The purported clip claims to show President Tinubu and his entourage touring a “new coastal road.” It shows a convoy of black luxury SUVs stuck on a flooded, potholed road. An audio overlay says: “Oga this road no be road again oh… Sir the vehicles are stuck, we cannot continue.”
The image of Vincent Otse, also known as VeryDarkMan, was inserted into the clip to make it appear credible and drive virality.
The clip, at the time of this report has generated 170k views and 2000 views, making it significant for factchecking as it could further mislead the members of the public, particularly as the 2027 general elections are fast approaching.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu, in 2024 flagged off the construction of the 700km Lagos-Calabar coastal road. According to the Federal Government during the inauguration, the essence of the road is to serve as an economic super-conduit, connecting Nigeria’s marine economy directly to its industrial hubs.By running along the coastline, the project is designed to bridge infrastructure gaps across nine coastal states, transforming Nigeria’s Atlantic corridor.
Despite the projection of the coastal road, the project has faced some criticisms by some Nigerians, in which some of them opened the construction procedures were not transparent enough. Some of the criticisms of the project can be found here.
As a result, there was a need to check the veracity of the claim and to know if the coastal road has deteriorated as claimed in the video.
Verification:
We subjected the video to analysis using Hive AI Detector.
The result showed:
• AI-generated video: 99.9%
• AI-generated speech: 0.3%
• AI-generated music: 6.2%
• Deepfake video: 0%
The 99.9% score for AI-generated video confirms the content was artificially created and is not a real-life recording.
Further checks show the video is satirical content that uses visual irony to critique poor road conditions. It was circulated only on social media, with no trace of such an incident reported by any credible or mainstream media organization in Nigeria.
The earliest public version indexed is from a Facebook Reel posted on September 3, 2026, by the page “Pitchside and Parliament”.
The same format has since been re-uploaded by several other pages.
On close inspection, particularly in the second half where they walk through mud and a Toyota Land Cruiser splashes them, the physics, facial expressions and movements show typical AI generation artifacts.
CONCLUSION:
The video claiming to show President Tinubu, his daughter, and Minister Umahi being splashed with water on a bad road is not real. It is AI-generated satirical content.
