Zahra Buhari Twitter Scandal: Nigerian President Claims Daughter's Social Media Account Was Hacked After Offensive Tweets

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari issued a statement Sunday disowning a Twitter account in his daughter's name after foreign leaders raised concern about its "unsavory comments." Buhari, via his senior special assistant on media and publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, said the profile under @Zahra_Buhari had been hacked, All Africa reported.

"We wish to state categorically that Zahra is indeed on Twitter, but the offending handle, @Zahra_Buhari, has stopped being her own for a long time since it was compromised by hackers," he said in the statement. "Tweets by this handle are therefore not her own and should be disregarded and considered as the work of hackers seeking to cause mischief between this country and other friendly states."

Zahra, a medical microbiology student of the University of Surrey in England, is one of Buhari's eight living children. A search of Twitter shows 13 accounts in her name, four of which claim to be "official." The profile mentioned in her father's Sunday statement has more than 429,000 followers. Despite having the handle @Zahra_Buhari, the user running the account claims to be upfront about not being Zahra. A recent tweet came from Denver.

Buhari's statement went on to say that Zahra's actual account is @Zmbuhari. She's the only member of his family who's on social media sites like Twitter or Facebook. "As they explore the possibilities on this new territory, we request the general public to ignore the many accounts on various platforms in their names that currently exist," the release read. "Such accounts, beside the authentic one cited above in the name of Zahra, are unauthorized and therefore fake."

Zahra's new, authorized account has about 5,000 followers.