Tijani Abdulkabeer
Claim
A viral tweet from a blog, GLplug, accredited to the Central Bank of Nigeria noted that the apex bank has ordered the shutdown of Opay, KUDA and Palmplay offices with effect from February 16th, 2023.
Verdict
False. The directive did not originate from the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Full Text
A viral tweet from a blog, GLplug claimed that the Central Bank of Nigeria has given a directive that Opay, KUDA and Palmplay shutdown their offices across the nation from February 16th.
CBN Governor has ordered the shutdown of OPAY, KUDA AND PALMPAY offices in Nigeria with immediate effect starting from 16th
February 2023.
signed: Governor Emefiele
CBN Governor#Opay #Caramel #olamide New Rema pic.twitter.com/DtuXg9YIcc— GLplug (@GLplug) February 17, 2023
The tweet which was shared at exactly 12:35 PM on friday has now generated 17K views, 4 retweets, 16 likes, as at press time.
Verification
FactCheckElections found that the claim is not true. To verify this statement, we checked the official accounts across social media platforms including the apex bank’s website but found that the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, at no point made such a statement.
In response, the management of PalmPAY has debunked the claim, sending warnings to their customers to be wary of false social media posts (Twitter).
“We are aware of a News currently being spread on Social Media (Twitter) about CBN shutting down the operations at PalmPay. Palmpay would like to declare that this Tweet is fake news. Please ignore all such misleading news of this nature,” the statement reads in part.
The authority of Opay service has also said the same. In a statement released following the viral post, the management also debunked the news on Instagram, urging their customers to ignore fake social media posts.
“Our attention has been drawn to a post (tweet) making rounds across social media platforms about Opay. The post mentioning the CBN shutting down is false and misleading to the general public,” the report said.
Meanwhile, as at press time, KUDA is yet to react to the viral claim.
Conclusion
The viral post attributed to the Central Bank of Nigeria is False as it did not originate from the CBN Governor.