Farooq Kperogi, an associate
professor of journalism in the US, says he is one of the reasons why the Buhari
Media Centre (BMC) was established.
In a series of posts on Twitter
on Thursday, the critic of Buhari described himself as an employer of labour in
the country.
He alleged that millions of
people with fake social media accounts were employed by the BMC to attack him
due to his critical posts on the presidency.
In December, the professor had a
meltdown on Twitter over a controversial news item he shared in the past.
He had shared a report which said
Sambo Dasuki, a former national security adviser (NSA), died in the custody of
the Department of State Services (DSS).
When Dasuki was released, many
online supporters of the president taunted the professor who later went off the
radar momentarily.
In the new tweets, Kperogi hit
back at his attackers.
“You’re a BMC Troll? I’m Your
Employer! Sometime in 2017, a long-time acquaintance of mine who works in the
Presidential Villa told me I had become a “big-time employer of labor in
Nigeria,” Kperogi said.
“I was puzzled until he explained
that I was one of the major reasons the Buhari regime inaugurated a shadowy
troll farm called the Buhari Media Center, which now goes by other names. The
BMC started with only about 40 people who have multiple fake social media
accounts.
“But it’s now an entire
propaganda and mind-management industry that employs thousands of people and
sucks up millions of naira monthly. N-Power beneficiaries have now been
incorporated into it.
“Their remit is to flood online
comments with pro-regime propaganda, smear and libel government critics, invent
slanderous falsehoods against critics, magnify the slip-ups of critics and use
that as a crutch to deflect focus on the government’s unending fraud, etc.
“But the unhealthy fixation the
Buhari regime has on me is flattering, frankly. This must either mean that, in
their cluelessness, they hyperbolize my influence on Nigerians or that my
exposes of their malfeasance is achieving the intended effect. Or both.
“Whatever it is, I’m glad to be
one of the reasons a swarm of thoughtless and unemployable online trolls have a
monthly paycheck.”
