Northern Nigeria has endured years of insecurity as jihadist groups and armed criminals terrorise communities, forcing thousands to flee their homes. A recent social media post claims to show a video of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in a north-central Nigerian state with seized military assets. But the claim is false; the video, taken in 2024, shows military equipment captured in Burkina Faso by a group affiliated with al-Qaida in West Africa.
“ISWAP has now entered Kogi State, which shares a border with Anambra,” reads a part of an X post published with a video on October 22, 2025.
Screenshot of the false post, taken on October 29, 2025
Kogi and Anambra are Nigerian states — the former lies in the north-central region, while the latter is located in the southeastern part of the country.
The video shows a long row of military vehicles with mounted machine guns and men wearing face coverings.
ISWAP, one of the deadliest extremist groups in West Africa, operates mainly in northeastern Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, targeting both civilians and security forces (archived here and here).
The post, which has been shared more than 900 times, was published by an account called “Citizen Observer” with over 11,000 followers.
The account uses the image of the Nigerian secessionist leader Nnamdi Kanu in the bio, together with the descriptors “journalist, Biafra advocate, socialist” and “Igbo”.
Kanu, who leads the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), was re-arrested in 2021 after jumping bail in 2017 for championing a separatist cause aimed at carving out Nigeria’s southeast, a region predominantly home to the Igbo ethnic group, into an independent state called Biafra. His supporters continue to identify themselves as Biafrans (archived here).
A review of the account’s feed shows that it mostly publishes content about IPOB, Kanu, and Biafra.
The post further suggests that Nigeria’s priorities are misplaced, implying that while authorities remain focused on detaining Kanu and suppressing IPOB activities, militant groups like ISWAP and Boko Haram continue to infiltrate and attack parts of the country with little resistance.
But while Nigeria grapples with a complex security crisis, the video does not show ISWAP fighters in Nigeria (archived here).
Old video
Using Google Lens reverse image search on keyframes from the video, AFP Fact Check found a post on X published by a conflict-monitoring account on August 8, 2025, with a screenshot of military vehicles identical to those in the claim video (archived here).
The post, captioned “#BurkinaFaso This footage circulating is from an ambush in Aug 14, 2024, between Fada N’Gourma and Boungou,” was a direct reply to another account that wrongly claimed the scene occurred in August 2025.
A further search led to a post from August 14, 2024, claiming the video (and others it published) showed the aftermath of an attack on a Burkina Faso Armed Forces convoy that reportedly left more than 140 soldiers dead (archived here).
Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, academically referred to by its acronym JNIM, reportedly took responsibility for the attack. JNIM is an al-Qaeda–affiliated militant group operating across the Sahel region.
Screenshots comparing the video in the false post (left) and the footage from 2024
Conducting a search using keywords from the 2024 post revealed that the incident was covered by global media, one of the first reports being this one in French by Radio France Internationale (archived here).
The incident was also extensively reported in French by the daily newspaper Libération (archived here).
Local Turkish media also reported the events here and here with full images and videos matching those shared by the X conflict-monitoring accounts (archived here and here).