The governor of Nigeria’s oil-rich Akwa Ibom state became a victim of WhatsApp fraud after suspected scammers hacked his number and solicited funds from his contacts. Per BBC, Umo Eno, who won the Akwa Ibom gubernatorial election last year, is also a pastor.
The suspected fraudsters reportedly reached out to several of Eno’s contacts via his WhatsApp number and asked them to send money to an account. The fraudsters also promised to pay the funds back at another time.
In a statement, Ekerete Udoh, who is Eno’s chief press secretary, confirmed criminals had “cloned” the governor’s WhatsApp number, adding that they aimed to scam people unaware of what was happening. Udoh also said they had reported the incident to law enforcement agencies.
RELATED STORIES
“We hereby warn that any message appearing to solicit funds by these imposters should be totally discountenanced by the general public as they do not emanate from the Governor,” the statement said.
This recent incident comes less than a month after Ademola Adeleke – the governor of Osun state – became a victim of a similar occurrence. Per BBC, numbers linked to Adeleke, who is Afrobeats superstar Davido’s uncle, were compromised.
In an interview with the news outlet, Cybersecurity analyst Bilal Abdullahi entreated governors to enable the additional security features that WhatsApp provides to prevent these incidents from happening.
“WhatsApp enables additional security layers whereby one can link the app to his email for authorisation before use and also there‘s what we call App Lock whereby one can lock the application and can only use it if he inserts a pin or passcode,” Abdullahi said.
Cybercrime, which is widely known as “Yahoo Yahoo” in Nigeria, is very prevalent in the West African nation. Thousands of suspected fraudsters have been arrested by the country’s financial crimes agency EFCC – though the issue remains widespread.
