Arrest photo does not show ‘hacker’ behind Nigerian mobile operator glitch

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A glitch experienced by the Mobile Telephone Network (MTN) in Nigeria saw erroneous messages being sent to customers cancelling their debts in November. Posts have since circulated with an image of a handcuffed man, claiming he was an IT student who had hacked MTN’s systems to send the messages. However, this is false: the person in the photo was arrested nine years ago for extradition to the United Kingdom on a murder charge. MTN issued a statement explaining that their systems experienced a technical glitch, making no mention of a hacker breaching their system’s security.

"The IT student who allegedly cleared all MTN users' debt has reportedly been arrested. I call him the GOAT (Greatest of all time)," reads a post published on a Nigerian Facebook group on December 10, 2023.

An image shared with the post shows a man in handcuffs flanked by two Nigerian police officers.

A screenshot of the false Facebook post, taken on December 21, 2023

The same claim was repeated in other Facebook posts (here and here) as well as on X (here and here).

MTN is Africa’s largest mobile network operator and operates in 19 markets across Africa and the Middle East. 

On November 11, 2023, MTN customers in Nigeria received a message saying that their airtime and internet debt had been cancelled, leading to online jubilation (archived report).

Some online users expressed disbelief, noting that the message could have been the work of a hacker. 

A screenshot of online reactions after MTN sent an erroneous message to its users

Weeks later, posts claiming to show the arrest of an IT student behind the "hacking incident" circulated online.

However, the claim is false.

System glitch

A reverse image search reveals the picture was taken nine years ago when Nigerian police arrested fugitive Jeffery Azuka Okafor in connection with a murder in the United Kingdom.

According to reports at the time, Okafor fled to Nigeria but was caught and extradited to face trial in London for killing a university student (archived here).

On November 5, 2014, Nigerian police published details about Okafor’s arrest on Facebook and Twitter, along with the image falsely linked to MTN’s recent glitch  (archived here and here).

Okafor was sentenced to life in prison for the murder (archived here). 

MTN also released a statement (archived here) acknowledging it had suffered a technical problem on November 11, 2023. 

"We had a system glitch! Our team is swiftly fixing it", read the company’s message on X.  

As a result, customers received text messages saying their arrears balances had been cleared. 

Contacted by AFP Fact Check, MTN reiterated that the incident was due to a technical error. 

Nigerian police also said they were not aware of any hacking complaints linked to the MTN glitch.  

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