A viral claim that the judge who led the panel affirming President Bola Tinubu’s 2023 election victory has gone blind following eye surgery in London is false, checks by NEWSNGR show.
The claim has circulated on X and other platforms since around July 3, in posts naming a “Justice Tsamma Abubakar” as the affected judge, while a separate graphic bearing the same story attaches the claim instead to Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, the sitting Chief Justice of Nigeria.
Neither figure exists as named or is connected to the story as told.
There is no Justice Tsamma Abubakar on record at Nigeria’s Court of Appeal or Supreme Court, and Kekere-Ekun, who took office as Chief Justice in August 2024, did not chair the Presidential Election Petition Court and has made no public statement about any illness.
The tribunal that unanimously dismissed the petitions against Tinubu’s election in September 2023 was led by Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani of the Court of Appeal, sitting with justices Stephen Adah, Misitura Bolaji-Yusuf, Moses Ugo and Abba Mohammed.
Tsammani was subsequently elevated to the Supreme Court in December 2023.
No verified reporting from Nigerian judiciary sources, the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court or mainstream news organisations supports the claim that he or any member of that panel has lost his sight.
This is not the first fabricated health claim targeting Tsammani.
In October 2023, a similar rumour alleged he was gravely ill and confined to a wheelchair after the tribunal’s ruling.
Court of Appeal officials at the time dismissed the claim, confirming he was attending court sessions and discharging his duties normally.
The graphics accompanying the current claim carry hallmarks of fabricated news design: a manufactured headline, an invented “What We Know” box, and a quote attributed to an unnamed “Spokesperson, Federal Judicial Service” — a body that does not exist under that name in Nigeria’s judicial structure. Several of the amplifying accounts, including one flagged as a parody account, present the story as satire or commentary rather than verified news, even as it spreads as fact.
