A Facebook post titled “Breaking News Wike Arrested At U.S Airport, Transferred To Washington D.C Prison Over 2023 Election,” which was shared over 3,000 times since February 8, 2025, includes an eight-minute video showing random footage of cars with sirens and parked police vans.
A Facebook page called “Dabreezy Comedy” shared the clip with its nearly 700,000 followers.
“I have been seeing news on a matter since yesterday and I saw a viral video on YouTube. They said Nyesom Wike has been arrested in the US. He was arrested immediately after he arrived at the airport and taken to a prison in Washington. I don’t know how true this information is but watch this video,” the narrator says in pidgin English.
The video includes embedded footage from another Facebook page called “Oghi Family Fun2”
The claim about Wike was repeated on TikTok.
Read Also: Fact Check On Claim That Trump Ordered FBI To Arrest Wike
Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election was highly competitive, with Wike drawing attention for his open support of the eventual winner, Bola Tinubu, from the opposing All Progressives Congress.
After the election, irregularities in the ballot results were discovered in Rivers state, where Wike was governor at the time.
Despite rumors claiming that Wike, now overseeing Nigeria’s capital city, was arrested in the U.S., this is false.
Wike is a well-established political figure in Nigeria, having held significant government roles since 1999, including two terms as governor of Rivers state in the Niger Delta region.
If he had been arrested, it would have made headlines in Nigeria, but keyword searches show no such reports.
AFP Fact Check reviewed Wike’s verified X account and discovered posts (here, here and here) indicating that he had been overseeing and commissioning construction projects in Abuja since late January.
Additionally, a video released by the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) depicted Wike leading a meeting with security chiefs in Abuja on February 7, 2024 — just one day before the post about his supposed arrest appeared.
Four days afterward, he chaired another meeting with the Federal Capital Territory security committee.
Wike’s spokesperson, Lere Olayinka, dismissed the claim as untrue.
“The minister has been in Abuja since the beginning of February. He has not travelled overseas, [much less] being arrested at an airport,” Olayinka told AFP Fact Check.
In January 2025, early in his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump signed various executive orders covering immigration, energy policy, and government restructuring.
However, viral posts on social media have falsely claimed that Nyesom Wike, Nigeria’s current minister for the federal capital territory of Abuja, was arrested on Trump’s orders for alleged crimes linked to Nigeria’s 2023 elections.
This claim is untrue, as videos and photos confirm that Wike was in Nigeria at the time the supposed arrest occurred.
Additionally, Wike’s spokesperson has denied the allegations, stating that he had not traveled abroad since February 2025.
Credit: AFP Fact Check
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