For Prof. Wole Soyinka, thousands of his
well wishers yearning to commune with him on the social media space have
continued to be hoodwinked by fraudsters who create fake online
profiles in his name.
Unlike a few of his age mates like the
Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and his fellow Nobel Laureate, Desmond
Tutu, who is an avid user of the social media, Soyinka has at any given
opportunity distanced himself from their use.
Barely three years after retiring from
public life, Tutu courted Twitter, receiving a rousing welcome from his
fans in 2013. Tutu personally signs his posts on Twitter with “DT” at
the end of each tweet.
But in contrast, Africa’s first Nobel
Laureate in Literature abhors the new media. Despite the fact that there
is an authentic verified page opened in his name on Facebook, which
commands a following of about 500,000 people, Soyinka has distanced
himself from its use.
When in May, the literary icon was
alleged to have branded First Lady Patience Jonathan as an “illiterate”
on a bogus Facebook account, he couldn’t hide his ill-fillings for the
social media.
The statement which went trending on
social media was credited to one of the dozens of fake Facebook pages
opened with Soyinka’s identity and circulated a few days after a video
showing Mrs. Jonathan weeping over the missing Chibok girls went viral.
Soyinka was categorical in his
condemnation of the abuse of social networking sites, declaring that the
social media was fast becoming a menace.
He stated that he was aware that one or
two serious-minded individuals/groups had instituted some forums on
their own, for the purpose of disseminating factual information on his
activities.
For instance, the National Association of
Seadogs, popularly called the Pyrates Confraternity, in April this year
unveiled a website to honour Soyinka who is one of their own.
The Pyrates Confraternity noted on the
website said the content of the online portal and the accompanying
digital discourse on it were aimed at honouring “one of Nigeria and
Africa’s outstanding literary icons and enduring social justice and
human rights activist.”
But Soyinka, however, explained that he
neither contributes to, nor comment on, the contents of the activities
going on the website and other such mediums opened to celebrate him.
“Let me take this opportunity to announce
yet again that I do not tweet, blog or whatever goes on in this
increasingly promiscuous medium,” he said in a press statement
denouncing the comments attributed to him on a fake Facebook account.
Calling for the regulation of the cyber
space, the literary icon lamented that with the way and manner the
Internet was being abused globally, the menace was going beyond
“personal embarrassment and umbrage.”
Decrying the embarrassment the parody
social media accounts were causing him, he reiterated the fact that he
had no footprints on the digital media space saying, “I do not run a
Facebook, account.”
Against the back drop of his experience
with online identity theft, the Isara, Ogun State-born professor
believes that there is a need for a “collective and professional action”
geared towards protecting the integrity of the social media.
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