CLAIM: A Tweet by Obinna Nwosu claiming that he is the first politician in Abia State of Nigeria to be verified by Twitter is FALSE.
Nwosu, a London-trained freelance Finance and Oracle database consultant, was a governorship aspirant for Abia State 2023 election. He has however, since pulled out of the gubernatorial race coming up on 18 February, 2023 election,
On February 17, 2022 the aspirant, who has, shared a screenshot of https://archive.ph/FotQg, a notification and a congratulatory message by Twitter that his account had been verified.
“Guess who has just been verified by Twitter. This makes me the first Abia state politician in history to be verified on Twitter,” his tweet read.
The blue verification checkmark on Twitter shows that an account of public interest is authentic, notable, and active.
https://archive.ph/FotQg
Screenshot of Nwosu’s Twitter post.
VERIFICATION: : The announcement by Nwosu was met by incredulous reactions from other Twitter users including this one by @jiswitu who pointed out that there was another verified Abia state politician named Mao Ohuabunwa.
A number of other notable politicians in Abia states are on Twitter including the present governor, @GovernorIkpeazu, former governor @OUKtweets, current Senator @SenatorAbaribe, former minister @ChukwuemekaWogu and former minister @ChikweKema.
However, only the Twitter pages of Senator Ohuabunwa and Obina Nwosu contain the blue verification badge. While Senator Ohuabunwa opened his Twitter account in June 2015, Nwosu joined Twitter in January 2017.
Screenshot of Twitter post @jiswitu
The News Agency of Nigeria wrote to Uche Okoli, the Special Assistant to Sen Ohuabunwa, to find out when the Senator’s account was verified.
In his response, Okoli confirmed that the account of the legislator was verified Feb. 22, 2017, which is five years before Nwosu.
Okoli, also shared an official email from Twitter containing the confirmation that the official handle of the Senator had been verified.
VERDICT: News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) has examined the Tweet by Obinna Nwosu claiming that he is first politician in Abia State to be verified by Twitter, and finds it to be FALSE. NAN reports that Sen. Mao Ohuabunwa, another politician from the same state was verified by Twitter years before him.
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