The Nigerian Army has alerted on complaints of increasing number of imposters, claiming to be the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant General Olufemi Oluyede on various social media platforms.
Nigerian Army’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Onyema Nwachukwu, in a statement on Saturday, said that the imposters have continued to perpetrate this mischief “using the official portrait of the COAS as profile picture on their various social media platforms”.
Nwachukwu said the act is perpetrated to dupe unsuspecting members of the public in one form or the other. He disclosed a new trend which is the fixing of online/ virtual meetings on zoom, WhatsApp, Facebook and other online engagements with demands that participants share specific numbers which appear on their screens during such meetings with which the imposters then engage individually with the participants and subsequently defraud them.
So far, Nwachukwu said, the NA has identified the following numbers as being frequently used by the fraudsters:
a. 09033949238.
b. 09075323836.
c. 09074272745.
d. 08169257155.
e. 08064561495.
f. 08054138812.
g. 09161521558.
h. 09026515718.
i. 09020898622.
j. 08131333263.
k. 09077188584.
l. 08084529752.
m 08147409236.
n. 09136497898.
o. 09024627712.
p. 07010119398.
q. 09138997224.
r. 09061549129.
s. 08163593764.
t. 07035272009.
u. 09018150412.
v. 08093524443.
w. 08088120581.
He urged the general public to refrain from engaging in any online meeting organised on social media platforms especially using the official portrait of the COAS as the display picture, and enjoined them to report such mobile phone numbers used to fix such online or virtual meetings through the Nigerian Army toll-free call centre number 193 for appropriate follow-up actions.
“The Nigerian Army entreats personnel and non personnel alike to be circumspect in engaging in any social media online, virtual meeting, or call, as official means of communication with the Nigerian Army hierarchy. Established protocols and procedures should be relied on while being vigilant against the wiles of scammers”, he said.
