The Director, Media and Publicity of the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign Team, Bayo Onanuga, has revealed why UberFacts, a Twitter handle that provides people with random facts across the globe, should be ignored.
Recall that the handle was recently trending for sharing the alleged Certified True Copies of court documents on how former Lagos State governor and now, Nigeria’s president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, surrendered $460,000 to the United States Government in 1994 over drug trafficking.
The circulation excited Peter Obi’s followers, Obidients, which made it enjoyed unprecedented engagements on Twitter, while some other section of the Nigerian populace believed the platform was paid to share such, especially at a time when the emergence of Tinubu as the president-elect is still being contested.
Though UberFacts, whose slogan is The most unimportant things you’ll never need to know 💥, has denied collecting money for the tweet, many are still not pacified.
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According to Onanuga, it was shocking that some Nigerians could believed a handle known for often tweeting falsehood.
“I am surprised that some Nigerians are excited about @UberFacts, a Twitter account, notorious for random tweeting of falsehood and ” the most unimportant things you’ll never need to know”. Only in Nigeria will the junk site be stamped with some semblance of authenticity or conferred with a badge of authority, when many of its facts had long been dismissed as unreliable. Some years ago, Buzzfeed gave this damning verdict: “The Truth About UberFacts: They’re Often Wrong”,” he wrote.
He cited a 2014 publication on Buzzfeed years back, which accused the handle of sharing facts that are delightful, but aren’t actually factual.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
