Embakasi East MP Paul Ongili, alias Babu Owino, has dismissed a social media account bearing his name, and which has been verified by Twitter, as fake.
In a message he shared on his Twitter handle, the MP urged his followers and Kenyans at large to treat the fake Twitter handle with the contempt it deserves.
He says the development is a wider scheme by the perpetrators to tarnish his name through the pseudo account.
“Kenyans, please ignore the FAKE ACCOUNT verified by Twitter under the name of @BabuOwino1. It’s fake and the perpetrators want to use it to soil my otherwise good name” he stated.
Unfortunately, Babu Owino’s original account is yet to be verified.
His remarks were accompanied by video footage of him clarifying that the verified account dubbed Awino Babu or @Babuowino1 is fake, urging Kenyans not to be misled by any information from it.
“My Twitter account is @HEbabuowino. Twitter has done a great mistake to verify a fake account under my name called @BabuOwino1. That is not my account; it is a fake account; it is a pseudo account,” he said in the video recording.
The verified fake Twitter account has more than 38,800 followers and follows 26 people including Babu Owino.
The original Twitter handle of the MP has more than 177,000 followers and follows 670 people.
“I would like to distance myself from it. Any other information that Kenyans will get from that account is fake. It means that the scammers went and forge my IG and used it for verification of the fake account” Babu Owino added.
This is the first time that Twitter has erroneously made this blunder in Kenya as far as a public figure is concerned.
According to buffer.com, to become verified on Twitter, you simply update your profile with current information, verify a phone number and email address, then fill out a form requesting consideration as a verified user.
One is required to fill out his account with a profile picture, cover photo, name, website, bio, a verified phone number and email address, birthday, and the tweets should be set as “public”.
The fake account has a different image to that of Babu Owino and the aforementioned information is missing on the profile.
