Twitter’s Unintelligent Lies

When we were in primary school, I had a classmate who had a vivid imagination and so told wild, outrageous stories. Some days, she said that they had a pet lion in her house; other days, it was a talking toothbrush that used to remind her to brush her teeth. One time, I swear she told us that her father was related to Michael Jackson and that she was supposed to be in the ‘Heal the world’ music video but couldn’t participate because she had malaria that day.

We were young, foolish, and impressionable. Of course, we believed her. Once a lie about Nigerian doctors travels around the world, the correction rarely travels at the same speed.

There is something deeply unsettling about watching a lie acquire a life of its own.

A few days ago, someone posted on X (formerly Twitter) advising Nigerians to undergo a scan before any major surgery in Nigeria to make sure their “vital organs are intact” and then repeat the scan afterwards to confirm that everything was still there. This was because, according to him, Nigerian doctors were stealing people’s organs. It was apparently intended to be a warning, but the replies quickly turned the warning into something much darker: stories of patients allegedly going into hospitals for appendectomies and coming out without their hearts, women undergoing Caesarean sections and supposedly losing their kidneys and livers, and even people claiming that someone had emerged from open-heart surgery missing a testicle.

I laughed at the absurdity of the stories and scrolled past, only for me to check a few hours later and see wonders.

Nigerians had hopped on the Twitter thread and were fabricating full-fledged lies. It wasn’t funny anymore.

The posts were viewed tens or hundreds of thousands of times. They were shared, quoted and embellished. One person’s allegation became another person’s “true story”, and before long the Nigerian doctor had become the villain in a horror story being told to the entire world.

Agreed, organ trafficking is real. It’s a serious international crime, and Nigeria isn’t immune from it. In 2023, the Federal Ministry of Health responded to allegations of kidney trafficking in Abuja and acknowledged that illegal organ trafficking is prohibited under the National Health Act. More recently, NAPTIP arraigned a hospital and four individuals in connection with allegations of organ harvesting involving three patients in Abuja. The accused persons pleaded not guilty, and the matter therefore remains a legal allegation rather than a proven conviction.

So, yes, investigate allegations of organ trafficking. Arrest people where there is evidence and prosecute them. If a doctor has stolen a patient’s organ, that doctor should face the full weight of the law and the profession. But where is the evidence that Nigerian surgeons routinely remove people’s organs during ordinary operations? What percentage of patients undergoing surgery have experienced this?

How many Nigerians have actually had their kidneys, hearts, lungs or livers secretly removed during surgery? How in the universe can doctors remove a heart and the patient will still be alive? Let’s even leave the heart out of it; how can a liver be removed? What is wrong with us? How daft can we be to believe these stories?

The only organ that can be stolen is one of the two kidneys. And even that is a herculean task. There is absolutely no government hospital that can get away with it. The truth is that there is no credible national statistic demonstrating that this is a widespread phenomenon. The absence of a statistic doesn’t prove that no individual case has ever occurred, but it should make us extremely cautious about turning unverified anecdotes into a national narrative.

There is actually a reason why the claim is so medically implausible.

Removing an organ isn’t like taking a phone from someone’s pocket. A transplantable kidney, liver or heart requires appropriate retrieval, preservation, documentation, matching and a recipient. Transplantation is a highly regulated process precisely because organs are precious biological material. The World Health Organization emphasises voluntary donation, informed consent, traceability, oversight and protection of donors as fundamental principles of transplantation.

This foolish narrative that Nigeria is operating a secret underground network in which surgeons routinely open an abdomen, decide they like the look of someone’s kidney and quietly take it home is false, wicked and downright insulting.

Personally, I think it speaks of our foolishness and lack of intelligence.

Nigeria has genuine problems with patient safety, medical negligence, poor documentation, weak regulation, delayed diagnosis, and inadequate accountability. Patients have legitimate reasons to demand explanations when things go wrong. But Organ harvesting isn’t one of them. We never reach that level of intelligence fa! How many hospitals do transplant sef? Where is the expertise sef?? How many urologists and Nephrologists does this country have?

This misinformation is dangerous. It soils our name as a country and destroys the trust on which healthcare depends. It is at times like this, that I understand the Chinese and North Korea control of social media; because what matter of nonsense is this? Social media should not be the place to concoct lies of gargantuan proportions about one’s own country.

A while back, the MDCN issued specific guidance on responsible social-media conduct in 2025, reminding medical practitioners that professional obligations of honesty, integrity, accuracy and confidentiality extend to online communication. This principle should not apply only to doctors. Anyone with hundreds of thousands of followers should understand that publishing an allegation about healthcare professionals carries consequences.

This brings me to a more uncomfortable question: should such posts be censored? I don’t think the answer is blanket censorship.

People should be able to tell their stories. A patient who believes a doctor harmed them should be able to speak. Investigative journalists should be able to expose malpractice. Whistle-blowers must have room to speak, particularly in a system where powerful institutions can sometimes silence uncomfortable truths.

But freedom of expression is not freedom from responsibility.

There is a huge difference between saying, “My sister died after doctors repeatedly misdiagnosed her; we believe there was negligence and we want an investigation,” and saying, “Doctors in Nigeria remove people’s organs during surgery.”

The first is an allegation that can be investigated. The second is a sweeping claim about an entire profession that demands evidence. Social-media influencers and ordinary users need to grow up. Before reposting a sensational medical story, ask three simple questions: Who is making the allegation? What evidence do they have? Has anyone independently verified it?

If the answer to all three is “I don’t know”, perhaps we should not be helping it reach another 500,000 people.

Nigeria already has enough genuine problems in healthcare. We don’t need imaginary ones.