Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, has dismissed as false a viral social media video alleging that the institution was involved in developing nuclear weapons for Nigeria.
In a statement issued on Saturday by the university’s Director of Public Affairs, Auwalu Umar, ABU described the video as AI-generated and a deliberate attempt to mislead the public about Nigeria’s peaceful nuclear energy programme.
The video, Umar explained, falsely claimed that Nigerian scientists in the 1980s secretly enriched weapons-grade uranium in Kaduna and that ABU researchers obtained centrifuge equipment from the A.Q. Khan network in Pakistan.
“The claim is baseless, unfounded, and unsubstantiated,” Umar stated. He clarified that during the 1980s, most scientists at the university’s Centre for Energy Research and Training (CERT) were still undergoing training abroad and could not have participated in any uranium enrichment activities.
He further stressed that ABU had no link with the A.Q. Khan network and had never received any equipment for building a centrifuge or nuclear device. According to him, the only nuclear-related facility at the university by 1987 was a 14 MeV Neutron Generator, which became operational in 1988.
Umar explained that Nigeria’s first nuclear reactor, NIRR-1, was established later in 1996 under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Technical Cooperation Programme and officially commissioned in 2004.
He reaffirmed that Nigeria’s nuclear activities have always been open, transparent, and strictly for peaceful purposes, in accordance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Pelindaba Treaty, which prohibit nuclear weapons development.
Umar added that ABU’s Centre for Energy Research and Training, established in 1976, continues to collaborate with the IAEA and international partners from the United States, Russia, and China, focusing solely on the peaceful applications of nuclear science for national development.