Ifechukwu Dennis, who was recognized as the creator of an AI-generated voice note that went viral online as a leaked recording of President Bola Tinubu, has been taken into custody by the Nigerian Police Force.

In a post on his official X account, Presidential Special Advisor on Information and Strategy Bayo Onanuga revealed the detention on Thursday.

He declared, "Ifechukwu Dennis, who created the phony voice that he passed on to his credulous targets as President Tinubu's voice, has been arrested by the IGP crack team."

A video of social media activist Martins Vincent Otse, also known as VeryDarkMan, went viral on May 27, 2026, sparking a week-long dispute that ended with the arrest.

An AI-generated voice that sounded like Tinubu was heard in the video making divisive claims, such as that he had forced Peter Obi to resign before the 2023 election, that insecurity in the South-East was intentional, and that he didn't care about the suffering of Nigerians.

However, numerous news outlets' investigations proved that VDM had not uploaded the altered audio.

The AI-generated voice notes were placed on footage taken from VDM's original Instagram video by an unidentified person, who then shared the altered version online.

In spite of this, the President had first demanded that VDM be prosecuted.

Onanuga was criticized for calling the incident "a clear case of egregious abuse of the social media platform" after fact-checkers verified that none of the fake audio was included in VDM's original video.

At the time this story was filed, more information on Dennis's arrest and potential charges was not readily available.

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