Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, has dismissed as false a viral social media video alleging that the institution was involved in developing a nuclear weapon for Nigeria.
In a statement issued on Saturday in Zaria, the university’s Director of Public Affairs, Malam Auwalu Umar, described the video as misleading and entirely fabricated. He said the clip, which appears to have been generated using artificial intelligence, was designed to misinform the public about Nigeria’s peaceful nuclear energy programme.
According to Umar, the video falsely claimed that Nigerian scientists in the 1980s secretly enriched weapons-grade uranium in Kaduna and that ABU researchers obtained centrifuge equipment from Pakistan’s AQ Khan network. “These claims are baseless, unfounded, and unsubstantiated,” he said.
He clarified that most of the ABU scientists at the Centre for Energy Research and Training (CERT) were still undergoing training abroad during the 1980s and could not have participated in any form of uranium enrichment. “ABU had no connection with the AQ Khan network and never received any equipment for constructing a centrifuge or nuclear device,” Umar stated.
The university spokesperson further explained that by 1987, the only nuclear facility at ABU was a 14 MeV Neutron Generator, which became operational in 1988. Nigeria’s first nuclear reactor, the Nigeria Research Reactor-1 (NIRR-1), was established much later in 1996 under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Technical Cooperation Programme and commissioned in 2004.
He reaffirmed that Nigeria’s nuclear activities have always been open, transparent, and conducted strictly for peaceful purposes, in line with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Pelindaba Treaty, both of which prohibit the development of nuclear weapons.
“The Centre for Energy Research and Training, established in 1976, operates in collaboration with the IAEA and international partners from the United States, Russia, and China,” Umar said. “The centre has never engaged in any secret weapons programme.”
He added that ABU’s founder, Sir Ahmadu Bello, had demonstrated early interest in the peaceful use of atomic energy after visiting the Museum of Atomic Energy at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States in 1960, two years before the university was founded.
“The management of Ahmadu Bello University remains fully committed to advancing science and technology for national development and upholding Nigeria’s international obligations on the peaceful use of nuclear energy,” Umar concluded.