NEWS-BRITISH COMPANY IS TRYING TO TURN VOTER AGAINST BUHARI
How British company tried to turn voters against Buhari in 2015 election:The British firm was said to have produced the anti-Buhari video to scare voters in the north from voting in the 2015 presidential election.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan (left) and President Muhammadu Buhari (right)Guardian
The Guardian UK obtained the video, which shows graphically violent imagery to portray President Muhammadu Buhari,
who was running against incumbent Jonathan at the time, as a supporter
of sharia law who would brutally suppress the people and negotiate with
Boko Haram.
Buhari, however, eventually won the election.
In
his testimony to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select
committee last week, a former employee of Cambridge Analytical, Christopher Wylie, said the company directed AggregateIQ (AIQ), a Canadian digital services firm, to target voters with the video during the Nigerian presidential campaign.
"Cambridge
Analytica sent AggregateIQ the video after they [CA] got banned from
several online ad networks because the graphic nature of the content
violated the terms of service. AIQ was quite freaked out about it. It’s a
very disturbing video. They told Cambridge Analytica that. They called
it ‘the murder video’", Guardian quoted Wylie as saying
A Canadian data analytics expert Christopher Wylie appearing as a witness before the British parliamentary committee (PRU/AFP)
The whistleblower has now handed the video to members of British parliament.
He also said, "Cambridge
Analytica sent AggregateIQ the video after they [CA] got banned from
several online ad networks because the graphic nature of the content
violated the terms of service. AIQ was quite freaked out about it. It’s a
very disturbing video. They told Cambridge Analytica that. They called
it ‘the murder video’."
Mysterious businessman
A
Nigerian billionaire businessman was said to have paid $2 million to
Cambridge Analytica to run the campaign on behalf of Jonathan.
The
video was reportedly targeted at Buhari's supporters in the northern
part of Nigeria. It was meant to scare them and stop them from voting.
The
Guardian, citing former Cambridge Analytica employees, had reported
that during the election campaign, the UK firm was offered materials
from Israeli hackers.
The ex-employees
reportedly described how the hackers passed a thumb drive of hacked
material relating to Buhari to them in Cambridge Analytica's offices and
they were directed by Alexander Nix, its chief executive, and Brittany Kaiser, a senior director, to search Buhari's personal emails for compromising material that could be used to smear him.
The material included private medical information that the employees said was leaked to the press.
Source:pulse.ng
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