The Nigerian reported to be among the victims of the Ukrainian plane crash in Iran on the 7 of January 2020 says he is alive.
The alleged dead man in the picture, Adeyeye Olayinka Bernard, whose picture was used on social media and some National dailies, said he was embarrassed and since his life and that of his family had never been the same again as people now look at them with strange faces.
At a media briefing in Lagos Wednesday, Bernard wore the same shirt on the picture used to confirm that he was the person in the fake news published.
He explained that he now wears face caps to cover his face when he walks on the street because he was being called ‘dead man walking’.
According to him, the picture that was used was taken on his birthday with wife and when the picture was used. He received many calls from friends and other family members wondering when he travelled out of the country and started working for Boeing as a trainee.
Bernard said his mother fainted when the picture was shown to her that the son had died in a plane crash.
Femi Martins, a counsellor to Bernard, described the development as the height of irresponsible blogging and journalism and must be condemned.
According to him, the report was a national embarrassment for the fact that most of the captions of the fake publications had the name of the country Nigeria.
Martins advised that bloggers and media outfits saddled with the task of disseminating information to ensure due diligence by verifying stories at their disposal before disseminating such information to the public.
IFEOMA OKEKE
