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Claim
Several high-follower mini-blog accounts on X circulated a claim that Nigeria had become the first country to ban white and British models in all advertising. The original post was shared on February 24, 2026, by a page on X seen to be curating daily content for its over 420,000 followers.
The post reads, “Nigeria becomes the first country to ban white & British models in all advertising. ‘We have 200M beautiful people here.. we will use our own.”
As at the time of writing this report, the claim had generated over 1.2 million views, over 46,000 likes, over 5,000 reshares, and thousands of comments.
A screenshot of the post, later reshared by another X account, @Iamyesyouareno, with over 480,000 followers, garnered more than 12 million views.
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The post got even more engagement through the account of some prominent individuals, including Elon Musk, the owner of the micro-blogging platform.
This led to mixed reactions from X users outside Nigeria.
Reactions To The Claim
ROUNDCHECK read through hundreds of the reposts, comments, and quotes- and one thing was obvious. Some non-Nigerians somewhat believed it, while some Nigerians doubted it.
Some framed the claim as proof of reverse racism, while some users did not believe the purported plan of Nigeria banning white and British models.
One user with the name Ronmaris wrote: “Elon loves to bring attention to lies and anything racist. Whatever brings controversy is what Elon promotes. Such a shitty guy”.
Another user Abazwhyllzz said: “Please sir this is a lie,you can confirm from grok Nigeria still uses white and British models for their advertisements.”
More of these divergent views and reactions are what made this claim viral, and still landed on the page of Elon Musk.
The reactions to the claim were largely fueled in part by a quote reposted by Musk.
On closer inspection, the claim that Nigeria has banned “white and British models” needed clarification, so we dug deeper to ascertain the fact.
ROUNDCHECK Findings
ROUNDCHECK conducted a keyword search on the claim if Nigeria truly banned white and British models.
We found some old reports from reliable news outlets detailing an announcement by the Nigerian government to ban the use of foreign models in Nigerian advertisements.
In our research, we found a 2022 document attributed to the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON). ARCON is the statutory body overseeing advertising and marketing communications in Nigeria.
The document was dated 22 August, 2022, containing an announcement that foreign models are prohibited in certain Nigerian-focused ads.
The said document was clearly titled ‘BAN ON THE USE OF FOREIGN MODELS AND VOICE-OVER ARTISTS ON THE NIGERIAN ADVERTISING MEDIUM/MEDIA’.
In the directive, signed by the then ARCON Director General, Olalekan Fadolapo, it was announced that, effective October 1, 2022, foreign models and voice-over artists would no longer be permitted in advertisements targeting the Nigerian market.
The directive stated that the measure was in line with the Federal Government’s policy of developing local talent and promoting inclusive economic growth within the Nigerian advertising industry.
“All advertisements, advertising and marketing communications materials are to make use of only Nigerian models and voice-over artists.”
“Ongoing campaigns are permitted to run out their terms, however, subsequent applications for revalidation for continued exposure of such materials will not be granted by the Advertising Standards Panel (ASP).”
Different international media organisations reported the announcement at that time, including BBC, NPR, AlJazeera.
Conclusion
The claim is PARTIALLY TRUE. ROUNDCHECK can confirm that Nigeria indeed banned foreign models from advertisements. However, it was not race-specific, nor did it single out ‘British or whites’.
The second part of the claim was that Nigeria is the ‘first country’ to ban ‘British or Whites’ models. There is no available data on countries that have banned foreign models from their advertising space.
