How British company tried to turn voters against Buhari in 2015 election [VIDEO]

dimeji akinloye

April 4, 2018 10:15 PM

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.

A video has shown how embattled British company,

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

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.

ALSO READ: Cambridge Analytica's parent company reportedly manipulated Nigeria's 2007 elections for PDP

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.

Watch the graphic video below:

dimeji akinloye