Hafsat Abubakar, the 27-year-old woman arrested over the alleged creation and circulation of a forged document claiming that fintech company OPay was shutting down its operations, has broken her silence, saying she deleted the post and publicly apologised after the company flagged it as fake.
Abubakar spoke to journalists while being paraded at the Force Headquarters in Abuja on Thursday, saying she was arrested five days after deleting the post and apologising, following a petition by OPay.
She said, “When I saw the notice immediately after they made it, I deleted the post immediately and rendered an apology on the same day. They gave me an hour to take it down and apologise before 11:59pm on August 31, and I did. I took the post down around 8pm and made an apology before 11pm.
“After I apologised, about five days later, which was on September 4, I was arrested by the Nigeria Police at home. When I asked what my offence was, they said OPay had filed a petition against me and that they were also investigating the case, so I had to come to Abuja with them from Zaria, Kaduna State.”
Abubakar said she saw OPay’s notice on X after the company identified the post and called for its removal and an apology.
She said, “OPay posted a notice on their official pages. I saw the OPay notice on Twitter, so I saw the post where they mentioned my name and my handle, @HAIFAH_ER_ABBA. That was where they called my attention on Twitter to take it down and render a public apology, which I made the same day.
“I told them that I never knew the information was false. That was why I posted it on my page, and I regretted any inconvenience caused by spreading the false information.”
Asked whether she resisted deleting the post or issuing the apology, Abubakar said, “No, there wasn’t.”
She advised Nigerians to verify information before posting or resharing content on social media.
“My advice to the whole of Nigeria is to first verify before posting anything, either posting or resharing. We have to verify it and stop posting,” she stated.
“After I posted it on my X page, I deleted it after I saw OPay’s notice that it was fake, and I publicly apologised. Five days later, I was picked up in Zaria, Kaduna State, following a petition by OPay.”
Vanguard had reported that the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre arrested Abubakar over the circulation of the false notice.
The NPF-NCCC said Abubakar was arrested on September 4 after its operatives traced the false notice to an X account linked to her.
Speaking during a press briefing on Wednesday in Abuja, the Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Anietie Iniedu, said operatives of the NPF-NCCC commenced digital forensic analysis and online tracing after the notice was circulated.
According to him, the exercise was aimed at establishing the source of the notice and identifying those responsible for its dissemination.
Iniedu said the investigation subsequently traced the publication to the X handle @HAIFAH_ER_ABBA, which was linked to Abubakar, leading to her arrest.
