“I Deleted It Within An Hour, Apologized To Opay Before 11:59pm, But Police Still Came From Abuja To Arrest Me In Zaria” — Hafsat Abubakar

Zaria-born content creator, Hafsat Abubakar, has spoken for the first time after she was paraded by the Nigeria Police Force for allegedly spreading false information about financial company, OPay.

Hafsat, who posts on x, was arrested at her home in Zaria, Kaduna State on September 4th and whisked to Abuja after the OPay petitioned the NPF National Cybercrime Centre over a viral fake notice.

Speaking when she was paraded before newsmen, the 27-year-old Ahmadu Bello University graduate said she complied immediately after OPay issued a one-hour ultimatum on August 31st.

“When I saw the notice immediately after they made it an hour ago I deleted the post immediately and render an apology immediately at that same day which they gave me an hour to take it down and apologize before 11:59 which is 31st of August and I did,” she said.

“I took the post down around 8pm and made an apology before that’s 11.”

According to her, she thought the matter had ended after her public apology, only for policemen to show up at her house five days later.

“After I apologized for like about five days which was on the 4th of September I was arrested by Nigeria Police at home. When I asked what my offense was they said OPay filed a petition against me and they are also on investigation on the case so I have to come to Abuja with them from Zaria,” she narrated.

Hafsat admitted she did not verify the document before posting it. The forged document had claimed OPay would go on indefinitely shutdown and advised customers to withdraw their funds — a claim OPay later debunked as completely false.

“Did you confirm this person before retweeting that post? No, I didn’t,” she responded to interrogators.

She explained that OPay tagged her directly on X (Twitter) on their official pages and asked her to take down the post and apologize publicly, which she did the same day.

“I told them that I never knew the information was false that’s why I posted it on my page and I regret any inconvenience and for spreading the false information,” she said.

The young graduate, who said OPay is one of her favourite companies and she enjoys doing business with them, expressed deep regret and said she never intended to spoil the company’s reputation.

On what lesson Nigerians should learn from her ordeal, Hafsat said:

“My advice to the whole of Nigeria is to first verify before posting anything either posting or sharing. We have to verify it and stop posting or spreading false information. I’m really sorry.”