The Nigerian Army has advised those impersonating the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Olufemi Oluyede, on social media to cease or face the consequences.
The warning was issued by Maj.-Gen. Onyema Nwachukwu, Director of Army Public Relations, on Sunday in Abuja.
Nwachukwu stated that the army had received numerous complaints about an increased number of impostors purporting to be COAS on various social media sites.
He said the imposters had continued to cause mischief by adopting the COAS’s official portrait as their profile picture on several social media platforms.
According to him, this is not the first time that impostors have sought to mimic the COAS on social media platforms in order to deceive unwary members of the public.
“A new trend observed, however, is the fixing of online/virtual meetings on Zoom, WhatsApp, Facebook, and other online engagements with a demand that participants share specific numbers that appear on their screens during such meetings, with which the impostors then engage individually with the participants and subsequently defraud them.
“So far, the Nigerian Army has identified the following numbers as being frequently used by the fraudsters.
“These are: 09033949238, 09075323836, 09074272745, 08169257155, 08064561495, 08054138812, 09161521558, 09026515718, 09020898622, 08131333263, 09077188584, 08084529752, 08147409236, 09136497898, 09024627712, 07010119398, 09138997224, 09061549129, 08163593764, 07035272009, 09018150412, 08093524443, and 08088120581.
“While the Nigerian Army, like other sister services of the Armed Forces, has peculiar ways of communication known to all officers and soldiers, members of the general public must be wary of the danger posed by these impostors.
“You are therefore urged to refrain from engaging in any online meeting organised on social media platforms, especially using the official portrait of the COAS as the display picture.
“Members of the general public are enjoined to report such mobile phone numbers used to fix such online or virtual meetings through the Nigerian Army toll-free call centre number 193 for appropriate follow-up actions,” he said.
Nwachukwu also asked both troops and non-personnel to exercise caution when using social media, virtual meetings, or phone calls as formal ways of communicating with the army hierarchy.
He also stated that established processes and procedures should be followed while remaining watchful against scammers.
