The All Progressives Congress (APC) alleged on Sunday that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had recruited social media actors to mount a campaign of calumny against it and its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu.

Bayo Onanuga, a spokesperson for the APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), made the allegation in a statement he issued in Abuja.

Mr Onanuga alleged that the major opposition party had begun circulating fake news about Mr Tinubu in the Hausa language.

“This scurrilous campaign by the PDP has already been perfected with a dedicated team working day and night from the PDP national headquarters at Wadata House, Abuja.

“PDP has also recruited many social media actors to carry out the campaign of calumny by proxy,” Mr Onanuga stated.

He added that the APC PCC uncovered the plot, targeted to manipulate Nigerians, especially those of northern extraction, to see Mr Tinubu in a bad light.

“The PDP and their hired social media influencers have already started pushing their nefarious contents,” Mr Onanuga alleged.

According to him, PDP is doing this by spoofing and using parody social media accounts of popular newspapers and blogs to disseminate fake news to hoodwink gullible Nigerians.

He stated that parody social media accounts such as Vanguard Hausa and Daily Trust Hausa were being used to circulate fake news on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and other digital platforms.

“All these parody Facebook accounts were used by the PDP on Saturday to publish malicious fake news that trucks carrying old naira notes belonging to Tinubu were arrested in Lagos,” Mr Onanuga stressed.

He added that part of the PDP’s machinations would be to make false claims and allegations against President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Tinubu, his running mate, Kashim Shettima and other APC national, regional, zonal and state leaders.

He said the PDP planned to do this in manipulated videos, doctored voice-overs, photoshopped images and other means, all in a bid to win the coming election by hook or crook.

“The legacies the party left behind were insecurity, badly managed economy, looted the treasury, and derelict national infrastructure in roads, power, ports, rail and pipelines among many others.

“The Buhari-led administration is still struggling to unmake the massive damage done to our country by the PDP,” Mr Onanuga said.

Efforts to get PDP officials to respond were abortive.

(NAN)