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Senate President Godswill Akpabio on Thursday made light of the viral video purportedly showing Senator Adams Oshiomhole massaging a woman’s leg aboard a private jet, saying the Senate dismissed the footage because it believed it had been generated using artificial intelligence.
Akpabio made the remarks during plenary while responding to issues on the floor of the Senate. His comments drew laughter from lawmakers as he referred to the controversy that dominated public discourse earlier this year.
“I don’t want to go outside of what we are doing… I would have asked a question when there was a picture showing one of our senators in a plane, massaging the leg of a girl,” Akpabio said.
Turning to Oshiomhole, who represents Edo North Senatorial District, the Senate President added that Senator Simon Lalong had advised him to ignore the circulating video because it appeared to be AI-generated.
“Senator Oshiomhole, your friend, your very good friend Senator Lalong came to give me security information. He said that we just ignored the message because we thought it was AI,” he said.
Akpabio, however, noted that the Senate could examine the matter should credible evidence emerge questioning the authenticity of the footage.
“But if you have another evidence, we have a petition before us, we can look into it if it’s not AI.”
The Senate President’s remarks referenced a video that surfaced in February 2026, appearing to show a man resembling Oshiomhole seated inside a private jet while a woman rested her legs on his lap as he appeared to massage them.
The footage sparked widespread reactions on social media, with critics questioning the conduct of a serving public official, particularly amid Nigeria’s prevailing economic hardship. The controversy also attracted attention because of Oshiomhole’s public comments on the rising cost of food around the same period.
Responding to the controversy at the time, Oshiomhole, through his media aide, Oseni Momodu, dismissed the video as fabricated and AI-generated, insisting it was created to blackmail and embarrass the former Edo State governor.
His media team described the footage as a deliberate act of cyberbullying, urged Nigerians to verify digital content before sharing it and said efforts were underway to identify those behind its circulation.
Although Oshiomhole maintained that the video was manipulated using artificial intelligence, no independent forensic analysis was presented to substantiate the claim, while some fact-checking organisations questioned whether the footage displayed definitive signs of AI-generated manipulation.
