Nigeria's Presidency called for the arrest of a social media critic over a fake Tinubu audio clip. His lawyers confirmed he didn't make it or share it. The Presidency apparently didn't check before making the call.

Here's what the audio claimed.

A voice mimicking President Tinubu said that insecurity in Nigeria would continue because Nigerians didn't vote for him in 2023. The same voice said people had been trying to remove him from office but it wasn't possible. It said he didn't care what was happening. He was winning 2027 regardless. It touched on the South-East, on World Bank borrowing, on the 2027 elections.

None of that was Tinubu. It was AI-generated audio . It was fabricated, placed into a video, and circulated online. The voice sounded like the President. The words were invented.

The clip spread quickly. An X user flagged it, linking it to Martins Vincent Otse, the social media critic better known as VDM. On Wednesday, Bayo Onanuga, the President's Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, posted on X calling VDM the conveyor and disseminator of the fake audio. He said VDM needed to face the full weight of the law. He called it an egregious abuse of social media.

There was one problem.

VDM's lawyers at Deji Adeyanju & Partners issued a statement the same day saying a basic check of their client's verified social media accounts would confirm he neither made nor shared the recording. The audio was not on any of his platforms. They called on security agencies to investigate the actual source of the doctored clip and hold the real creators accountable.

VDM himself went live, called Onanuga stupid and daft, and said he was ready to fly back early to face whatever the government planned. He said: "If you are pained that VDM is speaking, what option do I have other than to speak? It is my right to criticise the government when it is doing wrong."

Now sit with the sequence.

Someone created an AI-generated audio of the President saying things the President never said. Someone else clipped it into a video and posted it online. A third person, an anonymous X account, linked that video to VDM. And the President's media aide, with the full machinery of the Presidency behind him, called for prosecution without first establishing whether VDM had any connection to the clip at all.

This is not a story about whether the audio was fake. It was fake. That part is clear. This is a story about the order of operations. The call for prosecution came before the verification. The threat was issued and then the lawyers had to correct the record.

Let's dig deeper.

VDM has a history with powerful people and with courts. A court ordered his arrest in March 2025 over defamation allegations from gospel singer Mercy Chinwo. He's been a persistent critic of the government, of celebrities, of institutions. He is not a fragile figure and he is not above scrutiny.

But none of that is relevant to what happened on Wednesday. The Presidency of Nigeria responded to viral AI-generated disinformation by naming a critic and calling for prosecution. It didn't first establish whether the critic was responsible.

This isn't new either. The Cybercrime Act has been used repeatedly against bloggers and social media users who embarrassed the government rather than those who actually committed cybercrimes. The law exists. The reflex to reach for it before verifying has a long record in this country.

VDM has said things about people that courts have found problematic. The same free speech that protects his political commentary has also, on occasion, been used to damage people who had no recourse. Both things are true.

What is also true is this. Eighteen months before a presidential election, the Presidency of Nigeria demonstrated that when a critic's name lands near a fake audio clip, the instinct is not to investigate. The instinct is to threaten.

That is the thing worth filing. Not the audio. The response.