“Leaked secret recording” captured Ghana’s Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia calling Ghanaians “gullible and weak-minded.”

Beware social media posts that claim to have “leaked” evidence about high-profile figures, including a recent Facebook video promising “leaked secret recording”of Ghana’s Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, who was running for president, making disparaging remarks about voters ahead of the presidential election.

“Ghanaians are very gullible and weak-minded,” a voice in a Dec. 3 video says. “Most of them have even forgotten the lies we told in 2016 about the dollar and the economy. So, guys, let’s just stick to that script and keep promising them a lot of goody.”

Bawumia, who ran as the candidate of the nation’s governing New Patriotic Party, conceded the Dec. 7 presidential election to former President John Mahama of the National Democratic Congress. Mahama served one term from 2013 to 2017 before losing two reelection bids in 2016 and 2020 to current President Nana Akufo-Addo, who is term-limited after eight years in power. We contacted Bawumia’s campaign for comment about the Facebook post’s claim but received no response.

We found the “leaked audio” claims along with the same audio recording shared on TikTok and YouTube.

The Facebook video was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads and Instagram.)

This audio isn’t real and there are signs it was created using artificial intelligence. The voice in the recording doesn’t match Bawumia’s ​​natural speaking timbre heard in his interviews and public speeches. Most news media did not report on the supposed leaked audio but fact-checkers reviewed its credibility.

Election officials count the ballots Dec. 7, 2024, after polls closed in the general elections in Accra, Ghana.(AP)

Fact-checkers at the Ghana Fact-Checking Coalition debunked a similar TikTok video. The TikTok video has since been deleted. Fact-checkers at Ghana Fact said the audio “is likely to be inauthentic.” The outlet also debunked a different AI-generated audio claiming to be a leaked audio of Mahama making disparaging remarks about voters.

We rate the claim that this audio captures Bawumia making disparaging remarks False.