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Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, has dismissed a viral social media video alleging that the institution was involved in developing nuclear weapons for Nigeria.
The university’s Director of Public Affairs, Auwalu Umar, made this clarifications in a statement issued to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Zaria.
Umar revealed the video is AI-generated and a deliberate attempt to misinform the public about Nigeria’s peaceful nuclear energy programme.
According to him, 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 the AQ Khan network in Pakistan.
“The claim is baseless, unfounded, and unsubstantiated,” he said.
He explained that during the 1980s, most scientists at ABU’s Centre for Energy Research and Training (CERT) were still undergoing training abroad and therefore could not have been involved in any uranium enrichment activity.
Umar clarified that the university had no connection with the AQ Khan network and had never received any equipment for constructing a centrifuge or nuclear device.
He noted that by 1987, the only nuclear-related facility at the institution was a 14 MeV Neutron Generator, which became operational in 1988.
“Nigeria’s first nuclear reactor, NIRR-1, was established much later in 1996 under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Technical Cooperation Programme and commissioned in 2004,” he explained.
Umar stressed that Nigeria’s nuclear activities had always been open, transparent, and strictly for peaceful purposes in line with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Pelindaba Treaty, which both prohibit the development of nuclear weapons.
He reaffirmed that 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.
“The centre has never engaged in any secret weapons programme,” Umar emphasised, adding that ABU’s research focus remains on peaceful applications of nuclear science for national development.
ABU makes clarifications on alleged production of nuclear weapons
