Zifa Boss Phillip Chiyangwa Forces Twitter to Close Fake Account
Main News Sports World News Zimbabwe

Zifa Boss Phillip Chiyangwa Forces Twitter to Close Fake Account

Dr Philip Chiyangwa
Dr Philip Chiyangwa

Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) president and businessman Dr Philip Chiyangwa on Monday caused the closure of a Twitter handle that had been opened in his name.

Twitter is a social networking platform on which users post and interact with messages known as “tweets”. The account had Dr Chiyangwa’s name and picture.

Dr Chiyangwa, who won the Zvimba South National Assembly seat on a zanu-pf ticket on July 30, said the account sought to mislead people and tarnish his image.

“There have been posts for a while now under my name on Twitter and some relatives alerted me,” he said.

“Having thought they made good sense, but I knew where this was headed. These people start like this and start to destroy your good name with time.

“So I applied to shut down the Twitter account and cheers to the pretender.”

There have been countless abuses of prominent people on social media with accounts being illegally opened in their names.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) lawyer Mr Tawanda Kanengoni has also distanced himself from a Twitter account attributed to him.

Mr Kanengoni stole the show with his calm and composed representation of Zec during last Wednesday’s Constitutional Court (Concourt) hearing of the MDC-Alliance presidential candidate Mr Nelson Chamisa’s petition where he sought a court relief as he disputed President Mnangagwa’s election victory in the July 30 harmonised elections.

The court upheld President Mnangagwa’s electoral victory.

Following the ConCourt proceedings, a Twitter account credited to Mr Kanengoni has since been created, but he has dismissed it.

In a recorded video that has widely been circulated on Twitter by various Twitter users, Mr Kanengoni said members of the public should not follow the account as it was fake.

“It has come to my attention that there is someone masquerading as me on Twitter using an account which has the handle Advocate Tawanda Kanengoni or T Kanengoni,” he said.

“I would like to advise the public that I do not have an active twitter account. And any tweets therefore that purport to be coming from me do not originate from me. They are fake and should be disregarded.”

The alleged fake account which has Mr Kanengoni’s photo had attracted more than 3 000 followers and has more than 600 tweets.

Last week, ZEC said its chairperson, Justice Priscilla Chigumba, does not have a Twitter account after someone had created one her name.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *