A volunteer managing a Twitter account linked with the All Progressives Congress (APC) has hijacked the handle, the ruling party of Nigeria says.

The APC Twitter account has become the focus of alleged impersonation and spreading of false information about the party on the social networking site.

Edegbe Odemwingie, Assistant Director, Publicity of APC says in an official statement that a certain Philip Obin, who was cited as “one of the numerous youth volunteers for our party during the 2015 elections”, who allegedly had control of the Twitter handle, which the party wants to be distanced from.

APC said this in a rejoinder to a news report says the party was allegedly making secret overtures of friendship to spokesman of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri.

“Recall that the Party had on several occasions distanced itself from the now notorious twitter handle, “@APCNigeria” following unauthorized tweets and subsequent false reports credited to the Party on the outcome of the Benue South Senatorial rerun election (February 21, 2016) and an “Assessment Poll” on President Muhammadu Buhari Administration (May 31, 2017), among others”, APC says.

According to Odemwingie, “despite our rebuttals, Mr. Obin has continued to impersonate the Party through the twitter handle, “@APCNigeria.”

APC claims that efforts have been made to have Obin release the said Twitter handlle to the party, but the said overtures have failed to yield result.

“For the avoidance of doubts, we wish to state that Philip Obin was one of the numerous youth volunteers for our party during the 2015 elections. He administered the Twitter handle at the time. But despite numerous appeals to him by various well meaning party representatives, to hand over the handle, Mr. Obin has refused and in defiance continues to use it to misrepresent the party”, according to the statement.

According to APC, “giving this latest incident, the party is now left with no option than to take other lawful actions to restrain Obin from further embarrassing the party. The general public is yet again reminded that the Twitter handle @APCNigeria is not a Twitter handle of the All Progressives Congress.”

Odemwingie also denies a newspaper report that APC was secretly making overtures to Omokri saying that the Twitter interactions were allegedly with Obin, who manages a twitter handle, “@APCNigeria.” “In essence, therefore, Obin’s interactions with Omokri are in his personal capacity and do not involve party in any way”, APC says.

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