The Nigerian Police Force has arrested a man identified as Ifechukwu Dennis, who is alleged to have created and circulated an artificial intelligence-generated voice recording falsely presented as the voice of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The arrest was announced on Thursday by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, through a statement shared on his official X account.
According to Onanuga, the suspect was apprehended by a special police team after investigations linked him to the fake audio recording that was widely distributed across social media platforms.
“The IGP crack team has arrested Ifechukwu Dennis who originated the fake voice that he passed on to his gullible targets as President Tinubu’s voice,” Onanuga stated.
The controversial audio clip became a major topic of discussion online after a manipulated video surfaced on May 27, 2026. The recording featured a computer-generated voice closely resembling that of President Tinubu and contained several provocative claims.
Among the statements attributed to the fake voice were allegations that insecurity in Nigeria’s South-East region was deliberate, that President Tinubu pressured Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi to withdraw from the 2023 election, and that he was unconcerned about the hardships facing Nigerians.
The doctored content was circulated alongside footage of social media activist Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), leading many viewers to mistakenly believe he was responsible for the controversial recording.
However, investigations conducted by several media organisations later established that VeryDarkMan did not publish the manipulated audio. Findings revealed that an unidentified individual had extracted footage from one of his original Instagram videos and superimposed the AI-generated voice recording before sharing it online.
Despite the discovery, the Presidency initially called for the prosecution of the activist, describing the incident as a serious abuse of social media.
Onanuga had earlier condemned the circulation of the fake recording, calling it “a clear case of egregious abuse of the social media platform.”
The development sparked widespread reactions after independent fact-checkers confirmed that the original video posted by VeryDarkMan did not contain any of the fabricated audio content.
As of the time of filing this report, authorities had not released further details regarding the circumstances surrounding Dennis’s arrest or the specific charges that may be brought against him.
The arrest marks a significant step in the authorities’ efforts to combat the growing misuse of artificial intelligence technology for misinformation, impersonation, and the spread of false narratives online.
