The purported Twitter account of 2021 Nobel Laureate Abdul Razak Gurnar announcing Professor Wole Soyinka’s death has been debunked by the Literary Guru’s son.
‘’Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka is not dead, his son confirmed’’.
This comes after an account supposedly belonging to Abdul Razak Gurmar, winner of the 2021 Nobel prize for Literature, said Wole Soyinka is dead’’.
‘’I got a call from Nigeria. Wole Soyinka died suddenly a few minutes ago. A terrible news’’., the post on Monday, October 11 read.
However, eagle-eyed Twitter users were quick to notice some red flags
The first red flag was the use of a countable noun article for ‘’news’’- ‘’ a news’’
Grammatically, ‘’news’’ is uncountable and a Nobel Laureate would know that.
The post garnered over 150 retweets and 250 likes in a short while with some expressing condolences.
But Soyinka’s son, Ilemakin, laughed off the rumours.
‘’The rumour has been going around since last week. Soyinka is alive when last I checked’’, he said to THECableNg
The account already has 14,000 followers.
In announcing Gurnah’s Nobel Prize win on Friday, the BBC had tagged the fake account but Shoneyin, a Nigerian author, quoted the tweet, pointing out that Gurnah is not a Twitter user.
‘’During my short exchange with Prof. Abdulrazak Gurnah a few minutes ago, he stated, ‘’I am not a Twitter user. Please take note,’’ the post reads.
As of press time, all tweets on said account have been deleted.
(Lindaikejiblog)