Alex Saab, a Colombian businessman, who has a strong connection with the Venezuelan government of of Nicolas Maduro, who he helped to evade sanctions. Saab is said to have been involved in series of business deals with the Venezuelan government, helping to launder money.
Alex Saab was arrested in Cape Verde on his way to Iran, from Venezuela, by Interpol after getting alerted that he was wanted. After his arrest, a court in Cape Verde ruled his extradition to the United State of America, but was overruled by the ECOWAS court in Nigeria.
Reports by Buzzfeed disclosed that a document was collected stating a contract agreement between an undisclosed body and a Nigerian PR company, Alpha Reach, where they have been paid to promote the#FreeAlexSaab hashtag, to help him gain pity from the public, to aid his court hearing.
Alpha Reach, a company managed by popular Nigerian Twitter Influencer, Japheth ‘JJ’ Omojuwa was said to have employed the services of other Twitter influencers to trend the hashtag.
Investigation by Buzzfeed News and Digital Africa Research Lab (DigiAfricaLab) disclosed that over 1500 Twitter accounts were suspended in connection with the hashtag #FreeAlexSaab. As well as popular influencers having over 1.5 million followers, offering anybody who engages her tweets about Saab.
Twitter in a statement by their spokesperson, “Engaging in platform manipulation — regardless of the intent — is a violation of the Twitter Rules. This includes gaming hashtags, artificially boosting content, or paying for fake engagement,
“As a result of these behaviors, we’ve suspended more than 1,500 accounts associated with these hashtags and our investigations continue.”
According to a document that outlined the activities for the campaign that started in mid-January, that involves recruiting Social media Influencers from Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal to trend the hashtag #FreeAlexSaab.
Japheth Omojuwa’s Alpha Reach was said to have recruited 40 Nigerian influencers with over a million followers in total to carry out this assignment, which one of them is Adegoke Pamilerin, ThePamilerin.
Also involved in the circle is popular Nigerian actress, Tonto Dikeh, who tweeted on March 23, saying, “I want to give someone who urgently needs money N25,000. Pls, tell me what you will like to buy if I gift this to you. Pls add #FreeAlexSaab to your replies and you may be my next winner.”
Her account was also amongst those suspended by Twitter. While Nigerians are currently dragging Japheth Omojuwa on Twitter claimed to have received a call from a friend in the U.S to be a part of the movement, which he said, “I said to this person in confidence that I support the mission and would be happy to retweet a couple articles, but I would not personally be part of it,”
Omojuwa, saying his “strong relationship” with the US Embassy is a reason why he wouldn’t take part in the campaign.
“I don’t think I can start to have a conversation about whether Alpha is involved. If they are, there have definitely been some form of nondisclosure [agreements],” Omojuwa said.