Dare Babalola
Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria has strongly refuted allegations suggesting its involvement in a clandestine nuclear weapons development project for Nigeria, dismissing the claims as unfounded.
The university’s Director of Public Affairs, Malam Auwalu Umar, issued a statement on Saturday in Zaria, denying the allegations and affirming ABU’s commitment to peaceful academic pursuits.
Umar dismissed the viral video alleging the institution’s involvement in nuclear weapon development as AI-generated and misleading, stating it was designed to deceive the public about Nigeria’s peaceful nuclear energy initiatives.
According to him, the video falsely claimed that Nigerian scientists in the 1980s secretly enriched weapons-grade uranium in Kaduna and that ABU researchers obtained centrifugal equipment from the AQ Khan network in Pakistan.
The institution’s mouthpiece further explained that the information was baseless, unfounded and unsubstantiated.
He added that most of the ABU scientists at the Centre for Energy Research and Training, CERT, were still undergoing training abroad as at 1980s and could not have participated in uranium enrichment.
“Nigeria’s first nuclear reactor (NIRR-1) was established much later in 1996 under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Technical Cooperation Programme and commissioned in 2004,” he said.
