Nigeria's University of Maiduguri Denies Claim That Students Were Arrested for Being Boko Haram Informants

20 January 2026
Africa Check (Johannesburg)
By Precious Ewuji

Nigeria's University of Maiduguri denies claim that students were arrested for being Boko Haram informants

"Terrorism update -- bokoharam informants --Some students of the University of Maiduguri working with bandits! Who's to be trusted again in Nigeria?"

That's the caption of a video doing the rounds on Facebook in Nigeria.

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The video is split into two frames: the narrator is on the left, while law enforcement officials seemingly arrest several young men on the right.

According to the narrator, the men being arrested are students from the University of Maiduguri who have been working with Boko Haram: "Whenever Boko Haram wants to strike, these people will go ahead of them. They calculate everything, they see everything because nobody is suspecting them ... Thank God they have been arrested."

Boko Haram is an Islamist movement and a terrorist group whose violent activities have been reported in parts of northern Nigeria.

The University of Maiduguri is located in Borno state in Nigeria's northeast region. Borno is one of the states that has recorded the most attacks by Boko Haram over the years.

The video has also been posted here and here. (Note: See more instances listed at the end of this report.)

But does it show the arrest of University of Maiduguri students linked to Boko Haram? We checked.

University denies claim

A keyword search showed that the claim started circulating in 2019.

At the time, the university denied claims that some of its students had been linked to Boko Haram, saying: "It needs to be clarified that since the outbreak of the insurgency in 2009, the university management has never found any credible evidence implicating any of its staff or students as a collaborator or informant in the conflict, as it is being alleged online."

When the claim resurfaced in early 2026, the university released another statement debunking it. The statement, signed by the university's registrar, Ahmad Lawan, said the allegations contained in the video were "baseless, fake, and mischievous".

Lawan also appealed to the public to "disregard the misinformation and propagation of falsehood regarding this matter".

We also found no media reports to support the claim that the men being arrested in the video were University of Maiduguri students linked to Boko Haram. If the claim were true, the media would've most likely covered it.

More posts promoting this claim can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Read the original story, with links and other resources.
Africa Check is a non-partisan organisation which promotes accuracy in public debate and in the media. X @AfricaCheck and www.africacheck.org

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