Centre for Information Technology and Development, CITAD has raised an alarm over proliferation of social media accounts attributed to Nigerian politicians and high placed individuals.
Speaking at the launch of annual hate speech report for 2017 and 2018, held at the CITAD headquarters in Kano on Tuesdad, a Programme Officer at the centre, Hamza Ibrahim observed that the accounts became a beehive of perpetrating hate speech.
He said fake social media accounts, which were increasingly created by either the supporters of a politician or some unscrupulous elements with mischievous intention to overheat the polity.
Ibrahim observed that in the build-up to the 2019 elections, hundreds of fake accounts attributed to some notable politicians were increasingly created.
He said research conducted by CITAD shows that governor Nasir El-Rufa’i of Kaduna State topped the list of politicians with multiple Facebook accounts in northern Nigeria with 161 pages in number 2018 to 225 accounts in January this year.
He added that Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State had 154 Facebook accounts attributed to him in November last year which increased to 168 in January, 2019.
The Programme Officer lamented that most of these accounts were used to perpetrate hate speech and fake news, which have become a source of concern on the country.
Describing the act as identity impersonation and theft, Ibrahim called on the politicians and high placed Nigerians to beware of the trend and take necessary actions.
He however noted that the rate of hate speech had always been reduced as a result of CITAD’s effort to track it online and sensitive the public against it, as well as enlighten the stakeholders on how to curb the menace.
“We are really winning the war against hate speech. According to researches we conducted, hate speech and inflammatory speeches are reducing in Nigeria.
“We therefore continue to call on the stakeholders to sustain the tempo in thebfigjt against the menace,” Ibrahim said
