The X (Twitter) handle of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has vanished from the frontline social media platform.
Checks throughout Wednesday by Peoples Gazette showed the organisation’s handle, with its 2.2 million followers, was no longer accessible. “This account doesn’t exist” was the page’s message instead.
Dele Oyewale, EFCC’s chief spokesman, confirmed that the handle, @officialEFCC, has been down for three days.
He attributed the issue to a network problem and noted that the agency’s ICT department is working to resolve it.
“Our ICT department is working on it. They have been on it for almost three days now,” Mr Oyewale told The Gazette on Wednesday night. “We are hoping It will come up again.”
The crisis came days after a cluster of suspected Internet fraudsters threatened to wage cyber warfare against the anti-graft office for its alleged disregard of constitutional norms in cracking down on dubious activities among Nigerians online. The threats were made on Reddit and other forums last weekend, with some of the commenters claiming anti-graft detectives extorted them.
The EFCC has ramped up its campaign against suspected crooks online in recent months, raiding hotels and university dorms in a zealous endeavour to stymie the trend, which anti-corruption campaigners said had become a blight on the image of Nigeria and its hardworking population.
Nonetheless, rights advocates have condemned the agency for being too abusive in its pursuit of suspects, which they said could further erode fundamental rights of citizens. Chairman Ola Olukoyede announced a ban on after-dark raids after a midnight bust at Obafemi Awolowo University elicited a nationwide uproar. The ban was soon disregarded, and agents resumed midnight arrests under limited accountability.
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It remained unclear whether or not the disappearance of EFCC’s handle was directly caused by those who issued the threats or came as a result of either a sanction from X for some violations or deactivation by those running the account on behalf of the agency — the two scenarios that X frequently listed for the error message on the page.
The agency’s main website and other social media pages on Facebook and Instagram did not appear to suffer any vandalism as of Thursday morning.
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