In December 2024, Niger’s coup leader General Abdourahamane Tchiani accused neighbouring Nigeria of collaborating with France to destabilise his country, an accusation rejected by the West African nation. An X account loyal to a Nigerian secessionist movement has now shared a video claiming to show French soldiers landing in the country’s north, near the border with Niger. However, this is false; the footage shows Nigerian and French troops offloading supplies at Senou International Airport in Bamako during the Malian civil war in 2013.
“VIDEO: French Military Officially In Northern Nigeria,” reads the heading of an X post published on January 1, 2025, and shared more than 1,200 times.
Screenshot showing the false post, taken on January 3, 2025
The two-minute clip shows Nigerian troops offloading supplies from trucks while their French counterparts wheel out an aircraft from a cargo plane.
The post claims the video supports Tchiani’s charge about Nigeria working with France to destabilise his country, adding that the clip shows a Nigerian military officer confirming the arrival of French troops.
“As can be evidently seen, a joint section of both nation’s army (sic) were pictured unpacking the military hardware, munitions alongside other undetailed properties from the French aircraft at the military base,” reads part of the post published by “Emeka Gift Official”, an account supportive of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a breakaway group vying for the independence of Nigeria’s southeastern states.
Strained relations
Tchiani, in an interview with the country’s state media Radio-Télévision du Niger (RTN) on December 25, 2024, accused Nigerian President Bola Tinubu of plotting with France to destabilise Niger (archived here).
Nigeria and the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) bloc have denied Tchiani’s accusation (archived here and here).
France has recently lost military ties to several of its former colonial states in the Sahel. French soldiers have already been pulled out of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. In November 2024, Senegal and Chad also announced the departure of French soldiers from their soil, while the same action is expected in Ivory Coast before the end of this month (archived here, here and here).
However, the clip does not show French troops landing in Nigeria.
Troops in Mali
Using Google Lens to conduct a reverse image search on a keyframe in the video, AFP Fact Check traced the original clip to a YouTube video uploaded by the global news agency Associated Press (AP) (archived here).
Though published back in 2015, the AP noted that the video was a file clip filmed even earlier, on January 19, 2013.
“Nigerian soldiers disembarking, French unload equipment, German transporter lands,” reads the video’s caption.
AP described the scenes in detail, saying the video showed Nigerian troops arriving at Senou International Airport in Bamako, Mali, as part of a military mission from ECOWAS to assist in the fight against Islamist militants in northern Mali.
Comparison showing the false post (left) and the AP clip
Nineteen seconds into the AP video, a Nigerian army general named Ash Saad tells reporters that his troop are professionals in peacekeeping and counterterrorism (archived here).
“The troops are just fresh out of the Nigerian army peacekeeping centre where they have been given the rudiments, the basics, the tactics, the procedures, for a peacekeeping operation, and peace enforcement and additionally, all Nigerian troops now go through the various training centres that we have, that have been set up to train our troops in counterterrorism,” says Saad.
This is contrary to the false post’s claim that a military officer in the video had confirmed the arrival of French troops in Nigeria.
In December 2012, the United Nations Security Council had unanimously adopted Resolution 2085, authorising an African-led military intervention in Mali to assist the government in reclaiming territories seized by Islamist militants in the north.
In January 2013, France launched Operation Serval, deploying troops to halt the militants’ advance toward Bamako (archived here).
As a leading member of ECOWAS, Nigeria contributed forces to the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA), collaborating with French and other African troops to reclaim key northern cities and combat the insurgency (archived here).
AFP Fact Check has previously debunked another claim related to Tchiani’s recent allegations (archived here).
