Suspected fraudsters have hacked the WhatsApp number of Umo Eno, the governor of Nigeria’s oil-rich Akwa Ibom state, and asked his contacts for money.
Akwa Ibom, in southern Nigeria, is the country’s third-richest state based on its annual gross domestic product of $19bn (£15bn).
The governor, a pastor who founded the All Nations Christian Ministry International, was elected last year.
Many of Mr Eno’s phone contacts received messages from his WhatsApp number on Tuesday asking them to transfer a specified amount of money to an account and promising reimbursement later.
The governor’s chief press secretary, Ekerete Udoh released a statement confirming that the governor’s WhatsApp number was “cloned” by criminals attempting to defraud unsuspecting individuals.
Mr Udoh said law enforcement agencies had been notified.
“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 read.
Less than a month ago, a phone numbers linked to another governor was compromised in similar circumstances – Ademola Adeleke of Osun state, the uncle of Afrobeats star Davido.
Cybersecurity analyst Bilal Abdullahi said governors should add additional security to their numbers and WhatsApp to avoid issues of this nature.
“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,” he told the BBC.
Despite a massive clampdown in recent years, with the financial crimes agency EFCC arresting thousands of people, cyber-fraud popularly called “Yahoo-Yahoo” remains a big problem in Nigeria.
The director of Nigeria’s National Cyber Crime Centre (NCCC) Uche Ifeanyi Henry recently told the BBC that Nigeria’s government had spent millions of pounds on a state-of-the-art cyber-crime centre, to show it was taking cyber-crime seriously.
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