I don’t tweet –Soyinka

For Prof. Wole Soyinka, thousands of his well wishers yearning to commune with him on the social media space have continued to be hoodwinked by fraudsters who create fake online profiles in his name.

Unlike a few of his age mates like the Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and his fellow Nobel Laureate, Desmond Tutu, who is an avid user of the social media, Soyinka has at any given opportunity distanced himself from their use.

Barely three years after retiring from public life, Tutu courted Twitter, receiving a rousing welcome from his fans in 2013. Tutu personally signs his posts on Twitter with “DT” at the end of each tweet.

But in contrast, Africa’s first Nobel Laureate in Literature abhors the new media. Despite the fact that there is an authentic verified page opened in his name on Facebook, which commands a following of about 500,000 people, Soyinka has distanced himself from its use.

When in May, the literary icon was alleged to have branded First Lady Patience Jonathan as an “illiterate” on a bogus Facebook account, he couldn’t hide his ill-fillings for the social media.

The statement which went trending on social media was credited to one of the dozens of fake Facebook pages opened with Soyinka’s identity and circulated a few days after a video showing Mrs. Jonathan weeping over the missing Chibok girls went viral.

Soyinka was categorical in his condemnation of the abuse of social networking sites, declaring that the social media was fast becoming a menace.

He stated that he was aware that one or two serious-minded individuals/groups had instituted some forums on their own, for the purpose of disseminating factual information on his activities.

For instance, the National Association of Seadogs, popularly called the Pyrates Confraternity, in April this year unveiled a website to honour Soyinka who is one of their own.

The Pyrates Confraternity noted on the website said the content of the online portal and the accompanying digital discourse on it were aimed at honouring “one of Nigeria and Africa’s outstanding literary icons and enduring social justice and human rights activist.”

But Soyinka, however, explained that he neither contributes to, nor comment on, the contents of the activities going on the website and other such mediums opened to celebrate him.

“Let me take this opportunity to announce yet again that I do not tweet, blog or whatever goes on in this increasingly promiscuous medium,” he said in a press statement denouncing the comments attributed to him on a fake Facebook account.

Calling for the regulation of the cyber space, the literary icon lamented that with the way and manner the Internet was being abused globally, the menace was going beyond “personal embarrassment and umbrage.”

Decrying the embarrassment the parody social media accounts were causing him, he reiterated the fact that he had no footprints on the digital media space saying, “I do not run a Facebook, account.”

Against the back drop of his experience with online identity theft, the Isara, Ogun State-born professor believes that there is a need for a “collective and professional action” geared towards protecting the integrity of the social media.