Babangida’s endorsement of Peter Obi was from a parody twitter account

On Tuesday, News broke out that a former head of state, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, had endorsed the candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi.

The endorsement was widely reported by many online sites and some few national dailies.

Verdict: False

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Daily Trust checks showed that the news of General Babangida’s endorse­ment of Peter Obi was conveyed in his verified Twitter handle @General_Ibbro, following the New Year’s Day endorsement by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Babangida, who hailed the lead­ership role of President Olusegun Obasanjo, identifying him as an elder statesman and foremost general, said he cannot agree less with his endorsement of Obi, a position that has equal­ly set the social media abuzz.

The Tweet reads: “Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo will forever be a true elder statesman and a boss in the military. No serv­ing general in the Nigerian army today joined the mil­itary earlier than 1982. By then, Obasanjo had already finished his military career. I respect him a lot, with his endorsement.”

The account which is said to have joined Twitter in 2013 has over 70,600 followers.

As at the time of this Fact Check, the tweet had 745,000 views, 5,173 retweets, 18,000 likes and 493 quote tweets.

Verification

In verifying the tweet, Daily Trust scrutinised the said account and discovered that it is a parody account and is not associated with the former general.

In fact, this newspaper recalls that the elder statesman has repeatedly said he does not have a social media account and he is not on any social media platforms.

In fact, in the build-up to the 2019 general elections, the media team of Gen. Babangida had to issue a statement cautioning the general public not to fall for any information on social media accounts in his name.

“The attention of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida has been drawn to the existence of several Twitter handles and other social media accounts, purportedly owned by him.

We wish to state categorically that the Twitter handles bearing the name and photographs of General Babangida are fictitious. Their creation by unscrupulous elements is aimed at misleading unsuspecting members of the public.

In the light of the unfortunate development, the media handlers of the former military president wish to inform the general public, particularly the social media community, that IBB, as he is fondly called, currently has no active Twitter account and does not operate any other social media site,” the media office of IBB had said in 2019.

Consequently, Daily Trust reports that the elder statesman debunked the claims that he endorsed Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), for the 2023 general elections.

Similarly, spokesperson to the former military leader, Prince Kassim Afegbua, also refuted claims that his principal endorsed Obi, saying IBB doesn’t have a Twitter account.

“It is not true, please. Ignore the report of the endorsement. IBB doesn’t have a Twitter handle.

“If he is going to speak, it will be through a signed statement, not Twitter. Those behind the Twitter statement are liars,” he said.

Parody accounts on the rise

Daily Trust observes that ahead of 2023 general elections, parody is surging as fake information purveyors are seeking different ways to mislead and deceive the voting public.

The trend now has taken a new dimension as political actors, while leveraging technology, create parody accounts of politicians and prominent leaders, especially on Twitter, to propagate their agenda and influence the voting pattern of the electorate.

For instance, few months back, Daily Trust fact-checked tweets from the parody accounts of a prominent Yoruba leader, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, and that of the vice presidential candidate of the Labour Party Datti Baba Ahmed.

A visit to the Twitter parody account of the 94-year-old elder statesman, @PaAdebanjo, showed that the account was opened in March 2021 with 8,843 followers. Also, the parody account @DatiSen was opened in July 2022.

Both Pa Adebanjo and Datti Baba Ahmed have dismissed the parody accounts.

Although Baba Ahmed has a Twitter account, Pa Adebanjo does not have one just like Gen. Babangida (rtd)

Background

On Tuesday, many online platforms and some major national newspapers reported that a former military head of state, Gen­eral Ibrahim Babangida, and an elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark, on Tuesday endorsed Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), for president in the 2023 general election.

This was coming as Governor Sam­uel Ortom of Benue State on Tues­day also threw his weight behind the endorsement of Peter Obi by former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Jan 1 2023.

This is just as Chief Edwin Clark endorsed the candidate of the Labour Party as his preferred choice. 

In a state­ment entitled ‘Peter Obi, My Choice for the 2023 Presiden­tial Election’, Chief Clark said he came to that conclusion after a meeting of PANDEF leaders where the demands of leaders of Niger Delta region were articulated and presented to the former governor of Anambra State.

He said Obi shares his vision of a united, egalitar­ian and just society built on shared prosperity and com­mitment to justice, equity and fairness.

He said Obi’s vi­sion for Nigerian youths hith­erto forgotten by successive administrations calls for total support for it to be realised and urged all well-meaning Nigerians irrespective of re­ligious and political leaning to rally support for the Obi-Datti presidency.

“I have since been fully briefed on the successful out­come of the interaction held at that occasion. Among other things, I have taken note of the following observations which came out of the meet­ing:

“That PANDEF presented the expectations and demands of the peoples of the Niger Delta, comprising infrastruc­tural development, devolution of power, resource control, effective and inclusive par­ticipation in the oil and gas sector, among other things, to the presidential candidate.

“That the vision statement shared by His Excellency Pe­ter Obi at the occasion, as it re­lates to making Nigeria more productive, using the rich re­source endowment in every part of the country; curbing waste and fighting corrup­tion; and creating jobs for our teeming youths through innovative initiatives is very commendable.

“That his restated commit­ment to restructuring and devolution of power, will pro­mote harmony, peaceful co­-existence among the states and constituent parts of the country.

“That his vision for more equity and justice as it per­tains to the South South re­gion, which in the past sixty years has produced much of the revenue for the national economy, but has been ne­glected with little impact in terms of infrastructure and social development, is con­vincing and commendable,” he said while officially declaring his support for Obi.”