Nigerian social media contractor Japheth Omojuwa has come under intense scrutiny and vilification for spearheading a social media campaign that sought to curry public favour and control the narratives in the case involving embattled Alex Saab, a Colombian money launderer.
The role Omojuwa played in the publicity scandal came to the public knowledge on Thursday after he was exposed as a major recruiter in a coordinated media campaign seeking the release of Saab who’s facing criminal charges in Cape Verde and could be extradited to the United States.
According to a trenchant and explosive report published by Buzzfeed, Alpha Reach, a public relations firm run by Omojuwa, reportedly paid Nigerian influencers and mercantile journalists to push the campaign for public sympathy with Saab’s case ongoing in Cape Verde and ECOWAS Court Headquarters in Abuja.
Saab was arrested and detained for alleged corruption by Interpol and security operatives on a U.S. arrest warrant in Cape Verde during a stopover to refuel while travelling from Venezuela to Iran in June 2020.
The kingpin, an associate of the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, was identified as the country’s diplomat on a “humanitarian mission” to Iran, and is fighting an extradition order to the U.S.
For Omojuwa, the imbroglio was an avenue for pecuniary gains as he began supervising a campaign of himself and other Nigerian social media influencers that sought to trend hashtags against the extradition of Saab to the U.S., Buzzfeed found.
Earlier this week, Twitter suspended over 1500 accounts linked to the campaign, including those of popular influencers like Pamilerin Adegoke, for receiving payments to tweet about the Colombian citizen who is currently under house arrest in Cape Verde.
Restrictions on many of those accounts have now been lifted, but Omojuwa did not appear to be affected by the gale of suspension.
“Engaging in platform manipulation — regardless of the intent — is a violation of the Twitter Rules. This includes gaming hashtags, artificially boosting content, or paying for fake engagement,” Twitter said
“As a result of these behaviours, we’ve suspended more than 1,500 accounts associated with these hashtags and our investigations continue,” the company averred.
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Influencers and three Nigerian journalists were paid for the trending hashtags to influence public opinion and court proceedings in Nigeria and Cape Verde. There are also reports that some Nigerian media outlets were paid as part of the image laundering arrangement and some of them had started taking down the links after Twitter’s measures became public.
By the same token, former minister of education has sued Omojuwa for making her the director of his incorporated company without her consent.
However, reactions have continued to trail the saga even as Omojuwa denied his involvement in the media campaign saying he was being unfairly persecuted and targeted by a coterie of antagonists.
He opined that he does not deserve the kind of treatment that is being meted out to him.
Below are some the reactions:
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