The European Union, (EU) has listed Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); Peter Obi, of the Labour Party; Rabiu Kwankwaso, of New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) and Bola Tinubu, of the All-Progressives Congress (APC) as the four leading presidential candidates in the 2023 election with suspicious followers on social media “used to create a false impression of support”.
The EU, in its final report on the 2023 presidential poll titled: ‘Election Observation Mission Nigeria 2023’, said of sampled Twitter accounts, Kwankwaso had 80 percent dubious followers, Atiku had 60 percent suspicious followers, and Obi had 29 percent suspicious followers (the EU report stated 23 percent in its chart to illustrate the statistics in the same report). Tinubu had the least number of such followers, with 22 percent”.
“There was a steady increase in the number of followers of key presidential candidates over a period of three months (January – March). During the week of the presidential election, there was a sharp increase in the number of followers for all four candidates,” the final EU observers’ report stated.
It added, “It should be noted that a relatively large number of these new followers are suspicious accounts, used to create a false impression of support”.
Explaining its sample size and methodology for arriving at its conclusion, the EU said, “The sample, comprising 3,000 Twitter followers of each of the four major presidential candidates, was verified using the Botometer and Bot sentiel tools, as well as via manual verification”.
In recent elections, Nigerian politicians had deployed social media for massive campaigns and youth mobilisation.
The EU report also debunked claims that the 2023 general elections were free, fair and credible, lamenting the killing of 74 people during the poll, and berating the Nigerian Police for attacking journalists while ignoring political thugs disrupting the process.
