INFLUENCE OPERATIONS: Trending ‘TukuraRecommendsWike’ Hashtag Sponsored By APC Lobbyist

A trending TukuraRecommendsWike hashtag trending on micro-blogging platform, Twitter, is a product of influence operations, checks by THE WHISTLER has shown.

Influence operations is the deliberate spread of misinformation or disinformation to shape public opinion on topical issues.

It is also used for damage control and image laundering. It entails the use of bots — or incentivized social media users — to promote a narrative, while presenting it as organic. It is mostly used to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal where fake accounts are central to the operation.

The #TukuraRecommendsWike trend was started by, @brainjotter__, a parody account of Skit Maker, Chukwuebuka Emmanuel Amuzie, popularly known as Brain Jotter. Amuzie’s original Twitter account is @_brainjotter.

A parody is an account that depicts another person, group, or organisation in their profile to discuss, satirise, or share information about that entity

“Our sponsor is giving 200k in total. Use the hashtag correctly to win. What can you buy with 50k?

Reply using #TukuraRecommendsWike,” the parody account tweeted on Tuesday.

Subsequently, an army of bots spammed the hashtag on Twitter forcing it to appear at number 5 on Nigeria’s top trends.

Checks on the parody account @brainjotter__, showed that it had 492,916 followers with over 15,200 tweets compared to the 64,500 followers of the original account, @_brainjotter.

A further dive into the parody account shows it has been involved in past influence operations including one for Chinese phone brand, iTel (#itelPlayForPower) and Christ Embassy Church (#RhapsodyMay2).

THE WHISTLER analyzed the top accounts tweeting the hashtag using Botometer, a tool developed by Indiana University’s observatory of social media, OSoMe, to check how bot-like a Twitter user behaves.

About 12 of the 20 accounts sampled returned a high likelihood of coordinated inauthentic behaviour, proving that they were bots.

The trend was then sustained by other Twitter accounts (@TheAbisolaa, @AlwaysJayjam, @theoloriherself) with active subscriptions to Twitter Blue, giving them a verified check.

The accounts tweeted exact words further affirming that they were coordinated by influence operators.

Further checks by this website revealed that Tukura Kwayi, a youth leader of the All Progressives Congress is behind the influence operation. Kwayi on his Twitter profile describes himself as a lobbyist. It is unclear if River State governor, Nyesom Wike is directly involved.