Thousands follow Aisha Buhari on 50 fake Facebook accounts

Tens of thousands of people have been following social media accounts, especially on Facebook, which they think belongs to the wife of the Nigerian president, Aisha Buhari, but unknown to them, are operated by fictitious individuals.

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

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.”

This online identity theft of Mrs. Buhari cuts across different social networks, especially Facebook and Twitter, even as more accounts are signed up using the identities of Buhari’s close relatives.

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 APC.

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 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 PDP, which she accused of hacking into her page to post an embarrassing remark.

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