On January 11, 2022, a TikTok user posted a video of Festus Keyamo, a spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council (APC PCC), alongside claims that Keyamo said APC is not the best for Nigeria.
A year later, a Twitter user shared the video with the caption “The true confessions of my elder brother, Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN in respect of @officialABAT. Please, listen!”
The video, which supports a narrative that Keyamo said APC and its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, are not the best for Nigeria, has since been viewed by about 4,000 accounts.
Claim: Festus Keyamo said APC is not the best for Nigeria.
Verification
The CDD Election War Room traced the video to source, and discovered that the video clip dates back to January 4, 2018, when Festus Keyamo appeared before Sahara TV for an interview.
The interview was granted as part of the build-up to the 2019 general election in his capacity as the director of strategic communications of the APC Campaign Council.
While explaining how the major opposition party, APC was formed, Keyamo said “having pushed out the PDP, we know of course that the APC was not the whole and beyond…. Am I here to think that the APC is the best thing to happen to Nigeria? I will be a fool to say so.
“Am I here to say that there are no thieves within the APC? I will be a fool to say so. Will I be here to defend APC as the purest political party? And the all-cure elixir we have been looking for? I will be a fool to say so?” he said.
“No, but at a point, in some few two, three, years ago, it only represented the only hope we had to push out the PDP.”
The entire campaign was for President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term, and can not be interpreted as Keyamo’s confessions in respect of Bola Tinubu, as claimed by the Twitter user.
Verdict:
The video where Festus Keyamo granted the interview is real. However, the part uploaded on Twitter and Tiktok were cut out from the longer version of the interview to put his words out of context, and push a false narrative.