My mother fainted when she heard I was dead-Adeleye

He was shaken by the news of his death in several of Nigerian newspapers and online platforms last week.

Not only was he shocked by the news, his mother fainted when friends, colleagues and other family members besieged her to break the news of his son’s demise which was a ruse.

That was the pain Mr. Olayinka Bernard Adeleye was subjected to when nes broke that he was among the 176 victims of the Ukranian flight that was shot down by the Iranian authorities on January 7, 2020.

Not only was he rumoured dead, the news of his demise occurred on January 12, 2020, on his birthday.

He said any time he walked past the streets or through his neighbourhood, people take a second look at him, taking him for someone who had died.

Adeyeye 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, the alleged plane crash victim wore the same shirt on the picture used to confirm that he was the person in the fake news published.

Adeyeye says 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 traveled out of the country and started working for Boeing as a trainee.

The alleged dead man said his mother fainted when the picture was showed to her that the son had died in a plane crash.

Counsel to the Mr. Adeyeye, Femi Martins, described the development as embarrassing.

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 county Nigeria.

Martins advised that bloggers and media outfits saddled with the task of disseminating information should ensure due diligence by verifying stories at their disposal before disseminating such information to the public.