Introduction
In 2018, the guest of honour at Ghana’s 61st Independence Day parade was the late Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari. In his speech he said: “Nigeria and Ghana share close cultural and historic ties, which have continued to shape our bilateral relations… It is therefore my strong desire that we owe it as a duty to ensure that our good people continue to live in each other’s countries unhindered.”
Seven years later, Buhari’s successor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the guest of honour at the inauguration of President John Dramani Mahama on January 7, 2025.
In his speech, he also underlined the importance of fraternal relations between both countries. The opening paragraph of his address read: “It is always good when a friend and brother can visit the home of a close neighbour to celebrate his success and progress with him.”
Tinubu refers to Ghana as a close neighbour despite the two countries being separated by Togo and Benin. Such is the closeness at the political, diplomatic level, so strong Tinubu goes on in his speech to assure Mahama: “You know you can count on Nigeria’s support and goodwill whenever needed. We are your brothers and sisters. The bond is strong and cannot be broken.”
At the diplomatic level, very little is broached about the infamous mass deportations of Ghanaian migrants from Nigeria by the then Shehu Shagari government in 1983, an episode that has become known as the ‘Ghana Must Go’ saga.
Yet, with the muted diplomacy on Ghana Must Go and the all nice and easy unshaken friendship the two countries share, social media recently tested that relationship online and on the streets of Accra and people in the corridors of power reacted openly.
RelatedNews
In this disinformation analysis (DisinfoLab), GhanaFact dissects how WhatsApp became a rallying point for a citizen-led protest that demanded that Ghana repays Nigeria for the 1983 expulsions.
This report relies on Talkwalker social media analytics tool to map out how conversations around the Nigeria Must Go protest played out on X, we also dig into the genesis of the socio-cultural tension that birthed the protest movement and how WhatsApp was used to funnel hate speech.
Below are some major highlights from our findings:
a. The analytics pooled together 27K results for the three queries used – Igbo King, #NigeriaMustGo #AllIllegalsInGhanaMustGo. The total potential reach of the analyzed posts was put at 237.5 million with a 60.1% negative sentiment over the period analyzed.
b. While the unique authors keying into the conversations online stood at 2.8K, we observed that posts (in most instances deemed as negative) drove the discussions around the issue.
c. The analytics data in terms of the role influencers played in driving conversations on X, showed that Ghanaian and Nigerian accounts were dominant. We observed further that aside X accounts, YouTube was also a dominant network.
d. A GhanaFact rep joined a WhatsApp group where the initial Nigeria Must Go protest was organized, crucially we picked out the instance of hate speech openly directed at Nigerians.
e. While the issue started as a socio-cultural concern which was amplified largely by instances of misinformation, the issue attained national attention when the Foreign Affairs minister took interest, at a point meeting the ‘controversial Igbo King,’ subsequent to which Nigeria deployed a minister to meet authorities in Ghana over the matter – Minister Bianca Ojukwu met her colleague Foreign Affairs minister and subsequently President John Dramani Mahama.
Igbo King in Ghana – The viral video trigger
In July 2025, Ghanaians reacted to a viral video on social media about the alleged establishment of an Igbo village or kingdom by Nigerians resident in Ghana.
The video showed a man clad in royal regalia, identified as Eze (King) Chuckwudi Jude Ihenetu, claiming to be the King of the Igbo community in Ghana. In the 6 minutes and 26 seconds video, he is heard saying his people had acquired 50 acres of land in Old Ningo, a community off the Tema-Aflao road.
The video was shared across multiple social media platforms (here, here, and here).
GhanaFact monitored that the video had stoked tensions among Ghanaians discussing the issue across social media platforms, including X, TikTok, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
Most notably, elements of hate speech had been pronounced in a WhatsApp group that preceded a July 26, 2025, protest against Nigerians and the Igbo community in Ghana.
Hate speech on demo WhatsApp Group
At the peak of controversy about an Igbo kingdom in July, GhanaFact came across a publicly advertised WhatsApp page along with a Telegram channel via Facebook. We clicked the link to join and were admitted hours later by an admin.
- Name of the page: GHANA YOUTH -Demonstration – IGBOS MUST leave..!!
- Motto: Let’s save GHANA together..!!!
- Group created on: July 8, 2025, at 4:53 PM
- Population: 293 members
- Admin: +49 **** *******
- Members from across 22 countries worldwide (Africa (8), Europe (6), Americas (2), Asia (1) and Middle East (4), Caribbean (1)).
What did we find after joining?
Initial assessment showed that the group’s main discussion was targeted towards the organisation of the July 26 protest.
This protest, termed ‘Nigerians Must Go’ took place in some parts of Accra (here, here, here, and here). It was not covered by mainstream media or any of the leading credible media outlets, except for social media posts by influencers and gossip blogs (here and here).
But ahead of the demonstration, the WhatsApp group had been a support mechanism for people planning to join and in some cases, how members could donate towards the success of the protest.
Another key part of the group’s operation was unstructured discussions around the negative impact Nigerians in general (and Igbos) specifically were having across Ghana.
Most active members shared links (Facebook, TikTok, YouTube) about the “Igbo King” and other matters critical of Igbos. Hassan Ayariga, leader of the All Peoples Congress (APC), was deified as the lone public personality who was dedicated to realising the goals of the group – that is, driving out Nigerians.
The general consensus during and after the July 26 protest on the WhatsApp platform was about the low number of protesters, with members who were abroad accusing the Ghanaian contingent of failing to show up when it mattered most.
Generally, they applauded those who attended and kept requesting for videos from the protest to have a feel of what was going on on the ground. In total, GhanaFact counted four videos from the protest shared onto the platform.
It is worth noting that a second protest was announced for August 8 and being actively organized before some members began raising the issue of possible snitches in the fold which led to the unceremonious closing of the group.
In the midst of the exchanges, GhanaFact picked out harsh messaging targeted at Nigerians in general, but Igbos specifically.
But did they pass the threshold of being considered hate speech?
The United Nations generally defines hate speech as: “any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor.”
These elements of hate speech were central in the messages sent by members in the WhatsApp group.
“Igbo king must go, but Nigerians are the ones killing, robbing and kidnapping Ghanaians, so let’s not concentrate on only Igbo king alone tomorrow please. There’s no innocent in Nigerians; they only act and be friends with you so that they can buy your trust…!!!” one group member wrote, earning a thumbs up.
In response, another said: “You are 💯 right paaaaa all the Nigerians must go, they are all the same.
In other instances, crimes like kidnapping, armed robbery and social vices like prostitution were ascribed to Nigerians. “It’s their girls, more than 100 in prostitution,” one member alleged, referring to night workers under the Pokuase Overhead in Accra.
Such sentiments were a regular feature on the platform; in some instances, members referred to the historical Ghana Must Go incident, where thousands of Ghanaians were forcibly returned to Ghana from Nigeria in 1983 under the Shehu Shagari government.
This WhatsApp group was later dissolved on August 3, 2025, just five days before the second protest.
On X and Facebook, the conversation also doubled down on xenophobic sentiments, with posts suggesting Ghanaians were attacking Nigerian businesses. (One such viral post claimed that Ghanaians were destroying Igbo shops (here and here). This was, however, not the case as the video was from an incident on April 20, 2025, when youth in the Sabon Zongo community in Accra launched an operation that led to the closure of shops for drug peddling.
When GhanaFact spoke with security and policy analyst Adib Saani, he said events around the Igbo kingdom controversy had the tendency to affect Ghanaians living in Nigeria.
“There is also the tendency of Nigerians living in Nigeria going after Ghanaians living there. That is why it is imperative that we deal with the situation before it metamorphoses into something much more serious.
“It is rather simple because all we needed to do was find out from the Igbo King what his true intentions were. And he has come out to categorically deny, and I think that should have been enough. However, we have some elements that continuously put out a lot of information online that is making the situation more complex,” he said.
Social media analytics on Igbo kingdom narratives
Using Talkwalker, a social listening tool, GhanaFact tracked the level of engagement on posts about the Igbo kingdom spanning the period between June 30, 2025, and July 29, 2025.
The results from Talkwaker showed that largely negative sentiments had been associated with terms like Igbo kingdom, NigeriaMustGo, and Igbo from posts flooding social media within the period. At least 60% of posts had been based on negative sentiments.
A majority of these posts appeared to have come from X (formerly Twitter), with top Ghanaian influencers like Kwadwo Sheldon and Sika Official contributing to some of the viral posts. A number of Nigerian influencers like Teniola, Gossip24 Avenue, and David Hundeyin had also dominated narratives about the Igbo kingdom claims with engagements on their posts ranging between 24.5K and 11.8K.
Most of these claims also appeared to have come from outside Ghana. At 46.7%, the US topped areas where posts about the Igbo kingdom claims surfaced. This is followed by Nigeria, and then Ghana at 20.7% and 13.9% respectively.
More misleading narratives, including a presidential endorsement, and a false protest
While the conversation about the Igbo kingdom became intense on social media, several accounts on Facebook, X, and TikTok began sharing narratives suggesting President John Dramani Mahama had endorsed the plans for the Igbo kingdom.
One such account that shared this narrative is a Facebook page named For Ghana and Africa. This account is identified as sharing one of the earliest posts about the Igbo kingdom’s claims on July 2 (here and here).
Similar narratives were shared by other accounts, here, here, here, and here, showing the President in a meeting with Chukwudi Jude Ihenetu.
The posts with captions such as “John Mahama endorsed the ‘King of Igbos in Ghana,’ Ghana President Endorse Igbo King for Igbo people in Ghana Watch How Yoruba people will not sleep tonight,” among others, had been shared by some pro-opposition accounts and Nigerian accounts on X and Facebook.
Using Reverse Image Search, GhanaFact found that the meeting took place on December 11, 2024, when the Igbo community leader went to congratulate President Mahama for his electoral victory (here and here); however, this does not prove anything to the claim made.
But the misleading claims did not stop there. GhanaFact also came across misleading posts that showed old videos from a protest months ago to represent narratives that Ghanaians were protesting against the Igbo kingdom plan. (Find here, here, and here).
Investigations revealed that the videos were captured in May 2025 during a protest by members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), demanding the release of Bernard Antwi Boasiako, also known as ‘Wontumi’, the Ashanti Regional Chairman, who was detained by the National Investigations Bureau (NIB), (from the 1:03:31 mark of the video).
Diplomatic Engagements
Both Ghanaian and Nigerian authorities had attempted to address the tensions surrounding the Igbo kingdom claims and the potential implications for diplomatic relations.
On July 17, 2025, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, met with Chuckwudi Jude Ihenefu, the man at the centre of the Igbo kingdom controversy. The minister noted that Jude Ihenefu had disclosed that the contents from the viral video were not recent, but every word in the video was true.
“Yesterday, I invited Chukwudi Jude Ihenetu, the gentleman captured in a viral video claiming he intends to establish an Igbo Kingdom in Ghana following an alleged purchase of a tract of land.
“Izwe clarified that it was an old 2013 interview, which he deeply regrets. He assured that he has long abandoned that idea and has not purchased any piece of land for that purpose,” Okudezto Ablakwa said in a post on X.
In late July, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Bianca Ojukwu, met with her Ghanaian counterpart, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, where they discussed tensions over the Igbo kingdom claims.
President John Mahama was reported to have met with Bianca Ojukwu, assuring that Ghana “has no intention of resorting to mass expulsions, emphasising the shared history and inter-dependence of the two countries.”
According to Adib Saani, while this is sufficient, he says that at the citizen level, authorities ought to educate the public to avoid hateful information.
“It doesn’t just have to end with the government speaking with each other. How many people have a comprehension of what’s being done? I think there’s a need for some education for Ghanaians to understand that this is not the intention of the Igbos, hence the need for us to live with them in a peaceful manner,” he said.
Statements from traditional Ga authorities
The other leg of the the Igbo King episode is the response from traditional authorities. The Paramount Chief of the Ningo Traditional Area, HRM Nene Osragbo Djangmah XII, in a seven-point statement on July 8, 2025, said no lands had been sold to any Igbo community leader and at the time called authorities to interrogate the claims.
Similar statements were made by the Ga Traditional Council on July 9, 2025, distancing itself from the activities of Chukwudi Jude Ihenetu.
“The Council never recognised anybody or person as a King of Igbos within the Ga State. Eze Dr Chukwudi Jude Ihenetu should henceforth cease and desist from holding himself out as King of the Igbos in the Ga State by way of performing any traditional activity.”
The Ningo Prampram MP, Sam George, also condemned the idea of an Igbo Kingdom, noting in a statement on X that land had not been sold to “the said Igbo King to develop a kingdom.”
Conclusion
Indeed, posts about a supposed Igbo village in Ghana caused some agitation among Ghanaians on social media.
GhanaFact observed that what started as a social media campaign against an idea of the said kingdom eventually led to the spreading of hate speech on WhatsApp and other misleading narratives on other platforms. Eventually, a protest and online tensions caused enough concern for authorities of the two nations, who moved in to diffuse the tensions.
