ABUJA \u2014 Former Nigerian Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, has laughed off viral claims of his death, calling them nothing but fake news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For over a week, social media was ablaze with posts alleging Gowon had passed away. Some even claimed he collapsed and was rushed to intensive care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The frenzy hit a peak when Nigeria\u2011US blogger Adeola Fayehun urged followers on Instagram to \u201cpray for Gowon,\u201d describing him as critically ill. Old photos of him with a walking stick were recycled to fuel the drama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Gowon is very much alive. His aide, Adeyeye Ajayi, blasted the reports as \u201cfalse and misleading,\u201d stressing the elder statesman remains healthy and active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senators in Abuja also weighed in, warning that such reckless rumors damage Nigeria\u2019s image. They called for punishment of those behind the lies to serve as a deterrent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gowon himself reminded Nigerians he\u2019s not the first leader to be \u201ckilled off\u201d online. He recalled being falsely reported dead while attending a Christmas carol service last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is not new,\u201d Gowon said. \u201cThey even staged a burial for a business tycoon who was alive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Senate has now urged the National Security Adviser and the State Security Service to probe the origin of the fake story. A voice vote showed overwhelming support for the crackdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For now, Gowon remains very much alive \u2014 and the rumor mill has been exposed once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ABUJA \u2014 Former Nigerian Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, has laughed off viral claims of his death, calling them nothing but fake news. For over a week, social media was ablaze with posts alleging Gowon had passed away. Some even claimed he collapsed and was rushed to intensive care. The frenzy hit a peak […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":24913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,3,1138],"tags":[2131,2088,2130,2090,563],"class_list":["post-24903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-naija-news","category-politics","tag-fakenews","tag-governance","tag-gowon","tag-leadership","tag-nigeriapolitics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Yakubu-Gowon-not-Dead.jpg?fit=700%2C403&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24915,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24903\/revisions\/24915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}