As Nigeria prepared for elections in 2027, social media posts shared a video claiming it shows Nigerian former interior minister Rauf Aregbesola coming under attack at a campaign rally. However, this is false; AFP traced the footage to an incident during the tenure of Gboyega Oyetola, currently a government minister, when #EndSARS protesters attacked his convoy while he was the state governor in Osun, southwestern Nigeria, in 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis politics is now scary ooo. He was disgraced and molested. He was not even allow to do any campaign in sagamu, he and his campaign team were chased out of sagamu. An ingrate, the evil he did to Tinubu will be pursuing him and will not be politically recognized any longer (sic<\/em>),\u201d read the caption of an X post<\/a> published on August 17, 2025.<\/p>\n At the top of the 28-second video, an overlaid caption read: \u201cAregbesola got stone at Ogun state\u201d.<\/p>\n “Sagamu” refers to a major town in the state.<\/p>\n Screenshot showing the false post, taken August 18, 2025 <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Aregbesola, whose full name is Rauf Aregbesola, was the immediate past interior minister<\/a> and long-time ally of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu. He served<\/a> as Lagos commissioner for works (1999\u20132007) before becoming governor of Osun state (2010\u20132018) (archived here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n After falling out with the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Tinubu<\/a> due to a local leadership conflict and his suspension<\/a> from the party, Aregbesola formally defected<\/a> in July 2025, accepting the role of interim national secretary of the African Democratic Congress (ADC),\u00a0 the platform adopted by the opposition coalition for the 2027 elections (archived here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n A few days after Aregbesola was appointed as ADC secretary, local daily Punch Newspaper\u00a0published\u00a0a video\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0her<\/a>e showing jubilant supporters welcoming him back to Lagos from the nation\u2019s capital, Abuja (archived\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>).<\/p>\n AFP found no official reports that objects were thrown at him as he arrived in Lagos.<\/p>\n The footage in the X post was also shared here<\/a> on Facebook alongside a similar false claim. It shows a convoy of vehicles speeding through a crowd as people hurl objects at it.<\/p>\n The post, reshared more than 280 times, was published by an account called \u201cHon Kunle\u201d \u2014 a self-acclaimed network engineer with over 2,000 followers. A review of the account\u2019s feed shows it shares posts solely on Nigerian politics.<\/p>\n Using Google Lens to conduct reverse image searches<\/a> on keyframes from the X clip, AFP found the original video published on YouTube<\/a> on October 17, 2020 (archived here<\/a>).<\/p>\n The full video, published by Nigerian news broadcaster ChannelsTV, has a caption reading \u201c#EndSARS Protests: Governor Oyetola’s Convoy Attacked By Hoodlums\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cGovernor Oyetola\u201d, mentioned in the caption, refers to the former Osun state governor, Gboyega Oyetola.<\/p>\n#EndSARS rage<\/h2>\n