Leshaan Da Gama and Senator Adams Oshiomhole Clash Over Disputed Jet Video

A clash that has played out largely on social media between a South African influencer and a senior Nigerian lawmaker.

This escalated on Thursday after the influencer threatened to release what she said was a private sex tape involving Senator Adams Oshiomhole, hours after the senator’s aides dismissed a viral video circulating online as a fabrication generated by artificial intelligence.

The influencer, Leshaan Da Gama, who is known online as Leshan Dagama or Leshaan Dagama, made the threat in a series of Instagram Stories late Wednesday.

Images of the post spread quickly across Nigerian social media platforms, intensifying a controversy that has merged politics, celebrity culture, and anxieties over digital manipulation.

Her remarks followed a statement from Mr. Oshiomhole’s media team rejecting the authenticity of a separate video that had circulated widely earlier in the week. That footage, recorded aboard a private jet, shows a man who resembles the 74-year-old senator seated in a luxury aircraft cabin while touching a woman’s feet.

The senator’s representatives described the clip as a poorly made artificial intelligence forgery, arguing it was created for blackmail or political sabotage, and urged the public to ignore it.

Ms. Da Gama responded within hours, asserting that she was the woman shown in the jet video and that the encounter was genuine. In subsequent posts, she ridiculed the denial and pushed back against critics who questioned her motives.

She suggested that public anger was being misdirected toward her rather than toward a married public official and insisted that the video was not the product of artificial intelligence.

The exchange set off a fresh round of online debate. Supporters of Ms. Da Gama framed her statements as a challenge to political hypocrisy, while defenders of Mr. Oshiomhole accused her of seeking attention or attempting extortion. Others urged restraint, warning against concluding unverified claims and digital evidence fragments.

Mr. Oshiomhole, a former governor of Edo State and a prominent figure in the governing All Progressives Congress, has not personally addressed the threat to release a sex tape. His representatives have continued to maintain that any material purporting to show him in a compromising situation is fabricated and intended to damage his reputation. No law enforcement agency has publicly confirmed that an investigation is underway.

The dispute has unfolded at a moment of heightened public sensitivity to the behavior of Nigeria’s political elite. In recent weeks, Mr. Oshiomhole drew criticism for comments during a public appearance in which he suggested that food prices in the country were too low, remarks that many Nigerians struggling with inflation and economic hardship found to be out of touch. The emergence of a private jet video allegedly featuring the senator deepened perceptions of elite excess during a period of widespread austerity.

Ms. Da Gama, who has amassed a large following through adult-oriented content, luxury lifestyle posts, and brand partnerships in fitness and fashion, has not released additional material to substantiate her claim beyond her public statements. There is no independent confirmation that a sex tape exists, nor any indication of when or whether such content would be made public.

Digital forensics specialists note that advances in artificial intelligence have made it increasingly difficult to distinguish authentic footage from manipulated media, particularly when videos are brief, low in resolution, or stripped of contextual data. At the same time, they caution that broad claims of AI fabrication can also be used to dismiss genuine evidence without scrutiny.

As the episode continued to dominate conversations on X, Instagram, and WhatsApp groups on Thursday, it underscored the volatile intersection of politics, technology, and celebrity in Nigeria’s online public sphere. A disputed video, an emphatic denial, and an incendiary threat were enough to ignite a national debate over accountability, privacy, and the power of viral media.

For now, the claims remain allegations, the evidence is contested, and the outcome is uncertain. What is clear is that in an era of instant amplification, even an unverified clip can rapidly escalate into a political crisis with consequences that extend far beyond the screen.