In a report released by a U.S based firm, Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, for exposing an Israeli-based political consulting and lobbying firm named Archimedes, which has been coordinating campaign of calumny against former Vice President and PDP presidential candidate in last general elections, Atiku Abubakar.
According to a news report published on Friday by Associated Press (AP), titled: “Israeli disinformation campaign targeted Nigerian election”, Archimedes, a media consulting firm based in Israel was indicted and exposed by Facebook over its “coordinated and deceptive behavior”.
Archimedes was exposed for engaging in a consistent smear campaign against the PDP presidential candidate during the last March general elections.
Reacting to the development through a statement issued in Abuja at the weekend, the former deputy national publicity secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress Timi Frank , declared that the report by the US-based firm was an eye-opener to the misinformation and evil propaganda directed at Atiku Abubakar before and after the presidential election.
According to Frank, one of the pages that Facebook deleted on Thursday was filled with viral misinformation and direct attacks against Abubakar, the former vice president of Nigeria. The page’s banner image showed Abubakar as Darth Vader, the Star Wars villain, holding up a sign reading, “Make Nigeria Worse Again.”
He equally quoted the AP’s report “that on the overall, the misleading accounts had reached some 2.8 million users, and the pages had engaged over 5,000 followers, according to Facebook’s estimates.”
While thanking Facebook for bringing down the fake accounts, Frank said that “Nigerians ought to be worried about how the APC-led government is spending a huge amount of money just to discredit the rightful winner of the 2019 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar.”
“I believe that if a lie goes on for 20 years, the truth will definitely catch up with it one day. It will not be long before Nigerians will realise how desperate and fake President Muhammadu Buhari is in his bid to hang onto power.”
The political activist called on the international community to note the Associated Press’ report and the extent of damage done to the main opposition party in Nigeria and its Presidential candidate during the last general election.
“The AP’s report has clearly shown the level of lies sponsored against Atiku during and after the last general election. The campaign of calumny has not stopped but Nigerians should henceforth disregard malicious reports in the social media against the former VP,” Frank stated.