How social media played ‘saviour’ in Mayowa Ahmed’s crowd funding campaign which turned out to be fraud

 
Although there have been many horrific occurrences linked to the use of social media, many have this same platform to thank for their successes, salvation and accomplishments. Mayowa Ahmed’s case, catalysed by social media, is the latest popular beneficiary of the benevolence of Nigerians.
On Saturday, Mayowa, a 28-year-old graduate of University of Lagos took to GoFundMe – an online platform that allows one to create a fundraising campaign – to request for financial assistance. Mayowa is a sickle cell (HB SS) patient who was incidentally diagnosed with bilateral Ovarian Mass Carcinoma.  In her public plea, she wrote that she “needs assistance to raise 100,000 US Dollars for treatment at Emory International Hospital Atlanta USA. Kindly help me live again. I don’t want to die #SaveMe please.”


Within three (3) days, Mayowa was able to raise $100,852, more than the amount needed. This feat may not be too surprising, considering the social media boost her campaign was greeted with. Notably, a popular Nigerian Nollywood actress, Toyin Aimakhu posted about the #SaveMayowa campaign on her Instagram page. Aimakhu,Watch her here with over 733,000 followers had visited Mayowa and took a selfie with her, the one with which she pleaded with her fans to assist the ailing lady. Apart from the actress’ Instagram boost, the statistics on the GoFundMe page reflected that the campaign was shared over Facebook and Twitter about 5,500 times.

The attitude of Nigerians towards donating to assist those in need seems to be on the rise; and that’s a good thing. Just recently, a Nigerian athlete, Regina George, who will be representing the country at the Rio Olympics, also used the same platform to request for funding. Although Regina only managed to raise $3,300 out of the $4,000 she wanted in four days. Obviously, the difference between her case and Mayowa’s was the level of social media boost. Throughout the period Regina’s campaign was active; the total sharing of her page via platforms like Facebook and Twitter was less than 2,000.

Beyond crowd funding cases, social media has proved to be a very powerful rope, connecting people from several walks of life. Though its abuse cannot be ruled out, its proper usage has proved it to be a result-oriented means of reaching out to the public.