Fact check: Queen Elizabeth II did not send a condolence letter marking the alleged death of Nigeria’s president

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari did not die in 2017, nor did Queen Elizabeth II send a condolence letter to mark his passing, as suggested by social media posts being shared by hundreds of people.

The posts, uploaded to Facebook, include a photo of the British monarch signing a book followed by a caption that suggests it shows her writing a condolence letter to the family of the Nigerian leader. The caption claims the letter was written in Feb. 2017, and quotes it as reading: “The death of President Buhari came to us as a shock. He has been one of the active pillars in Africa. May the good people of Nigeria and Africa know that our hearts are with them in these hard times.”

These claims are false. Buhari did not die in 2017; the Queen did not write a condolence letter for his family, and the illustrating photo was actually captured years earlier at an entirely different event. The claims, themselves, are also not new, having been used to fuel years-old theories that Buhari died during hospital treatment in London, and was “cloned” by a lookalike (here) .

Buhari travelled to London twice for hospital treatment in 2017 – once in January (here) and again in May (here) . It was during these trips that intense speculation about the then-74-year-old’s health began, due, in part, to the secrecy surrounding his undisclosed condition and lengthy treatments.

By the end of the year, a new theory had been realised: Buhari had died in London (here), and a lookalike was now masquerading in his place. In December 2018, Buhari himself addressed the rumours. He told a filmed event in Poland: “Somebody has said I am cloned,” adding in later tweets: “I can assure you all that this is the real me. Later this month I will celebrate my 76th birthday. And I’m still going strong!” (here) .

One of the questions that came up today in my meeting with Nigerians in Poland was on the issue of whether I‘ve been cloned or not. The ignorant rumours are not surprising — when I was away on medical vacation last year a lot of people hoped I was dead. pic.twitter.com/SHTngq6LJU

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) December 2, 2018

The photo of Queen Elizabeth writing the alleged condolence letter in the false posts was actually a picture taken in 2015 during the launch event for the Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership in International Affairs at Chatham House (here) . There is no record of her sending a condolence letter to Buhari’s family in 2017, and the online reports of her doing so appear to come from unofficial blogging platforms (here, here) .

VERDICT

False. Reports of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari death in 2017 are several years old and are false – he has been seen in public since to directly address the rumours. There is no record of Queen Elizabeth II writing a condolence letter to the family of the Nigerian leader, and the picture widely used to illustrate the claim was taken at a Chatham House event several years earlier.