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ND Avengers disown new fake Twitter accounts

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8 years ago

July 6, 2016

Olu Emmanuel

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Insist, “Our account is suspended”

The Niger Delta Avengers has disowned two new Twitter accounts that were brought into public notice by unknown persons after the group’s twitter accounts have been blocked by the service providers. The Avengers clarified that they have not opened any new account since the suspension of their operational accounts were suspended by Twitter.

The NDA alleged that the fake accounts are run by agents of the Muhammadu Buhari government who took advantage of the suspension of the group’s real account, warning the public to be careful of being misled. “Please be mindful of these accounts,” the NDA had cautioned.

Micro-blogging website Twitter suspended the account of the Avengers for undisclosed reasons on Monday, July 4, 2016. The militant group acknowledged that its account was closed because it bridged the policy of the website.

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“This, @NDAvengers, is the only twitter account we have and it’s under suspension by Twitter because we bridge their policy,” the militants said in a statement on its website.

Mudoch Agbinibo, a Brigadier General in the NDA Command and its spokesperson, declared that, “@Real_Ndavengers and @NDAvengers1 are all imposters and enemies of the [Niger Delta] region.” he cautioned: “The general public should not listen to those handles because they are government agents against our struggle.”

The Avengers shared screenshots of the fake accounts (below) which are sending out taunting messages to Twitter and also the Buhari government. One of the accounts was said to have issued a set of tweets commenting on the political impasse in Abia State.

The @NDAvengers account has been a potent communication tool for the Niger Delta Avengers to announce their frequent attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta which has devastated the Nigerian economy. The NDA announced its multiple attacks on five major pipelines and oil installations at the weekend. The group also announced last Tuesday that it had blown up two pipelines, one belonging to Chevron Nigeria Limited and the other to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

There are indications that perhaps, Twitter took the decision of closing the Niger Delta Avengers account to block a major source of information flow for the militants, as well as not to be perceived to be encouraging rebellion against the government of Nigeria.