2023 Elections: EU Report Reveals Peter Obi, Atiku Had More Dubious Followers On Twitter Than Tinubu

The European Union named Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian Peoples Party, and Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress as the four leading presidential candidates for the 2023 election, with suspicious social media followers “used to create a false impression of support.”

According to the EU’s final report, ‘Election Observation Mission Nigeria 2023,’ Mr Kwankwaso had 80% dubious followers, Mr Atiku had 60% suspicious followers, and Mr Obi had 29% suspicious followers (the EU report stated 23% in its chart to illustrate the statistics in the same report). Mr Tinubu had the fewest such followers, at 22 per cent.

2023 Presidency: Peter Obi Meets EU Officials In Abuja (Photos)

“There was a steady increase in the number of followers of key presidential candidates over a period of three months (January – March). During the week of the presidential election, there was a sharp increase in the number of followers for all four candidates,” the final EU observers’ report on Nigeria’s 2023 presidential poll stated.

It added, “It should be noted that a relatively large number of these new followers are suspicious accounts, used to create a false impression of support.”

Explaining its sample size and methodology for arriving at its conclusion, the EU said, “The sample, 3,000 Twitter followers of each of the four major presidential candidates, was verified using the Botometer and Bot sentiel tools, as well as via manual verification. In the process, the EU EOM found that suspicious accounts accounted for 80 per cent of the sample of 3,000 new Kwankwaso’s followers, 60 per cent of the sample of 3,000 Atiku’s followers, 29 per cent of Obi followers and 22 per cent of the sample of 3,000 Tinubu’s followers.”

According to the EU, accounts were not immediately identified as suspicious because they had an original-looking profile name or used a random snippet of a photo used online as a profile picture that could not be directly identified as having already been used (via Google’s reverse image search). However, additional study identified negative characteristics, such as anonymity or significant participation and endorsement of specific people, topics, and hashtags, according to the report.

Presidency Rejects European Union Report on 2023 General Elections

Nigerian politicians used social media for big campaigns and young mobilization in recent elections.

The EU study also slammed assertions that the 2023 general elections were free, fair, and credible, regretting the deaths of 74 people during the election and chastising Nigerian police for beating journalists while ignoring political thugs disrupting the process.

Follow us on Facebook