Viral Statement About Niger Coupe Attributed to President Weah is Fake

A viral statement which appears to support the coup in Niger attributed to Liberian President George Weah is fake. The tweets and publications are in reaction to Niger’s Military coup where the President, Mohamed Bazoum was overthrown and detained on July 26, 2023 by the Military junta.

Fact Check By: D. Olivia Banwon |LVL Fact Checker

The statement purporting to be made by President Weah has been tweeted by Nigerian blogs and some online newspapers. The quote attributed to President Weah states: “As long ECOWAS tolerates institutional coups that allow lifetime presidents, there will always be military coups. And we cannot condemn military coups when we do not condemn those who carry out institutional coups”.

A verified twitter user identified as Ainà Dipo with 18.6K followers on August 2, 2023  tweeted the statement along with the President’s picture and  attracted 159K views, 162 comments, 2,804 likes, 62 quotes  and was retweeted by 761 people.

Another user, Charly Boy Area Fada 1 with 345.9K followers who tweeted on August 4, 2023 with the President’s photo attracted 254K views, 193 comments, 7,293 likes, 78 quotes and was retweeted by 2,553 people.

The Vanguard, a Nigerian newspaper published an article on August 9, 2023 also attributing the quote to President Weah. Another article published in Premium Times  on August 6, 2023 also attribute the same quote to President Weah.

What Did We Find

Local Voices Liberia fact-checking desk authenticated the quote being attributed to the Liberian leader and found it to be misleading. Our fact-checking desk established that, the publications and tweets lack credible sources. The exact time and event where the President made the statement were not provided, raising doubts about its authenticity.

To further verify the claim, we searched Liberia’s Executive Mansion website and found a release dated September 9, 2023 where President Weah, during a virtual summit of the Authority of Heads of States and Government made a statement following the Niger coupe.

“While we are condemning these military coups, we must also must the courage to look into what is triggering these unconstitutional takeovers. Could it be that we are not honoring our political commitments to respect the term limits of our various constitutions?”

An excerpt from the press release published on the Executive Mansion website

We also reviewed the official Facebook account of President Weah and found no such statement or quotation posted on his wall. We alsoreviewed official X (formerly Twitter) account of the President Weah and found no quotation as such as the one being attributed to the Liberian leader.

Conclusion

Based on our research conducted we conclude that the claim is attributed to President Weah is a manipulated content. Although President Weah made a statement about the Niger military coupe, the quote being attributed to him is fake.

This report was developed with the support of Internews through the USAID Media Activity project. The funder has no say in the editorial decision leading to the production of this content.