On April 13, 2024, an X user shared a picture of Muhammadu Buhari, the immediate past President, shaking hands with the former President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hassan Rouhani. with the caption: “In this World War III, Nigeria Stand With Iran/Palestine. The giant of Africa is with the oppressed.”
This was shared on the same day Iran launched multiple drone strikes targeting sites in Israel. As of the time of this report, the post has seen over 1.3 million views and over 24,000 likes, and it has triggered a flurry of reactions from social media users.
Screenshot of the post on X
Claim: Does Nigeria support Iran and Palestine in the ongoing Israel–Gaza war?
Verification
The CDD War Room traced the attached image to a November 2015 event, the 3rd Gas Summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, which convened in Tehran, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The summit was attended by gas exporting countries like Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. The GECF is an intergovernmental organisation that provides a framework for exchanging experience and information among its member countries. It affords GECF Member countries the opportunity to discuss, at the highest level, developments, trends, and policies on energy in general and gas in particular, and also to reaffirm their continued support for the objectives of the Forum. One of the outcomes of the summit is the Tehran Declaration.
Nigeria has remained non-aligned in the ongoing Isreal-Gaza war, however, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abuja, Nigeria, on April 14, 2023, released a press statement on its official X handle, which called on Iran and Israel to exercise restraint as diplomatic efforts were ongoing to ease tension and avoid a wider conflict in the Middle East.
VERDICT: FALSE
The claim that Nigeria’s government has declared its support for Iran and Palestine in the ongoing Israel–Gaza war is FALSE. Findings revealed that the image is from a 2015 event and is unrelated to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.