Aisha Buhari 'operates' over 50 Facebook accounts

Less than a month into the current administration, the family of President Muhammadu Buhari are already faced with online identity theft.

Across different social networks, especially Facebook and Twitter, more and more accounts are signed up using the identities of Buhari’s close relatives.

For one, the wife of the President, Aisha Buhari, is associated with, at least, 50 accounts on Facebook. While the majority of the pages go with her image on the profiles, a few others are run without photographs.

Sadly, thousands of unwary social media subscribers have been relating with “the first lady” on the obviously-fake profiles. The numbers of followers on some of the pages are in thousands.

One of Facebook accounts has more than 45,000 followers while another one has over 29,000. And many of them are profiled as “the official Facebook account of the First Lady of Nigeria.”

The majority of the Facebook pages are rarely updated, but a few publish public activities of the President and his wife regularly. They also post political statements made by leaders of the All Progressives Congress.

The name of the President’s wife is subjected to a similar abuse on Twitter. Besides her verified page, five others are linked to ‘Aisha Buhari’. Among the impersonating handles are @MrsAishiaBuhari, @MrsAishaBuhari, @IamAishaBuhari and @ABuhari.

@ABuhari is currently followed by 45,900, including some serving/past governors and top celebrities. This gives the impression that the account is owned by Aisha, but she has the verified @FLON handle.

Identities of Buhari’s children are equally subjected to abuse on leading social media platforms. For instance, Yusuf Buhari, probably unknown to him, is linked with, at least, 17 Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Some of the false accounts use the photographs taken with his father and circulated on the Internet when he arrived Nigeria a day before the May 29 inauguration.

Zahra, the President’s daughter, may be used to online impersonation and associated problems. During the the presidential election campaign, she came to the limelight through the power of social media. But the same power brought her some ‘tears’, causing her to take down her famous Twitter handle.  

She signed off amid disagreement with the campaign team of the Peoples Democratic Party, which she accused of hacking into her page to post an embarrassing remark.

In an era dominated by online social networking, identity theft is a growing challenge facing public office holders, celebrities and their families.

And as social media gain a wider acceptance in Nigeria, it is taking a disturbing dimension. This may be one of the reasons many active users have started verifying the accounts on both Twitter and Facebook.   

Celebrities used to be the most targeted. Many of them, indeed, had publicly denounced some of such fake accounts.

But in recent times, public figures and religious leaders appear to be the highest victims.

Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, had to call a press briefing and threatened to use security experts to fish out operator(s) of a Twitter account that was sending misleading remarks in his name before he got respite. Even at that, the unknown online fraudsters are back at it, ‘feasting’ on his name.

Aides of the immediate past President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, had also issued press statements to counter the activities of online impostors. Even outside government, Jonathan’s impersonators have not stopped, as his name and photographs continue to pop up in different accounts run on both Twitter and Facebook.