BY: Habeeb Adisa
Claim:
“Gov. Adeleke has presented his Certificate of Return to Peter Obi as a gesture of appreciation for his support in securing victory in the just-concluded Osun State gubernatorial election.”
Verdict:
FALSE.
What happened?
Adeleke won the August 15, 2026 Osun governorship election with 511,067 votes, defeating his closest challenger, All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Bola Oyebamiji, who polled 444,815 votes.
On August 19, 2026, Adeleke received his Certificate of Return at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters in Osogbo.
Verification:
FactCheckAfrica did a keyword search of reports surrounding both the election victory and the subsequent Certificate of Return ceremony and found no credible report stating that Adeleke presented his Certificate of Return to Peter Obi as appreciation for Obi’s support.
What was Peter Obi’s role?
Peter Obi did congratulate Adeleke after the election. On August 16, 2026, following INEC’s declaration of Adeleke as the winner, Obi issued a message titled “Osun: When the People Stand, Democracy Wins.” He described the result as a victory for democracy, congratulated Adeleke and praised Osun voters, particularly youths, for defending their votes.
However, the reports of Obi’s intervention describe a post-election congratulatory message, not evidence that Obi helped secure Adeleke’s victory.
Therefore, the claim’s suggestion that Adeleke gave Obi his Certificate of Return “as a gesture of appreciation for his support” is unsupported.
What does the photograph show?
The photograph accompanying the claim shows Adeleke and Peter Obi shaking hands while holding a framed document.
The image itself, however, does not establish that the document is Adeleke’s 2026 Certificate of Return or that the photograph was taken during the official INEC presentation.
The documented Certificate of Return ceremony took place at INEC’s headquarters in Osogbo on August 19. Reports of that ceremony describe Adeleke receiving the certificate from INEC officials, with members of his cabinet, lawmakers, friends and supporters present.
AI-image detector results
Two independent AI-image detection websites were also used to examine the photograph.
DeepAI’s AI Image Detector classified the image as “likely created by AI,” giving it an AI likelihood score of 94% and a “Fake” classification.
screenshot of AI detectors Verdict
Separately, Undetectable AI’s image detector also classified the image as likely AI-generated, displaying a 6% “real” score.
screenshot of AI detectors Verdict
These results raise additional questions about the authenticity of the photograph. However, an important caveat is necessary: AI-image detectors are probabilistic tools and their scores should not, on their own, be treated as definitive evidence that an image is AI-generated. A detector’s result can be affected by image compression, resizing, editing, enhancement and other forms of digital processing.
Conclusion:
The claim that Governor Ademola Adeleke presented his Certificate of Return to Peter Obi as appreciation for Obi’s support in securing his victory is FALSE.
Peter Obi’s documented involvement was a congratulatory message after the election. The attached photograph also raises authenticity concerns, as two AI-image detection tools flagged it as likely AI-generated.
