‘Mummy O! My life has scattered’, ‘O Jesus! I am finished’ ‘My village people! Oh my village people, what have I done?’ with hot tears flowing ceaselessly, Shola had come to the reality that her wedding ceremony billed for 1st May 2020 was not going to hold again. But WHAT HAPPENED? Read on!


Eight ( years ago Shola’s uncle fulfilled his promise of purchasing an android phone once she completes her secondary school education – a Tecno N3. All these while she had been intimidated by the incessant stories of ‘Facebooking’ and ‘Whatsapping’ by her friends. Desperate to join the gang, she quickly purchased a data plan to start browsing and facebooking. However she was faced with a big issue, she needed a g-mail address! She hadn’t operated a phone before and she wasn’t a computer literate!



As early as 8am the next day Shola rushed into Bigbros Cybercafe, ‘I want to open a g-mail address, I just got a new android phone and I want to Facebook and Whatsapp as soon as possible’ she barked. ‘Okay, opening a g-mail address costs ₦200 naira, can I go ahead?’ said the Cafe guy. ‘Yes of course! Use ‘sholahasarrived@gmail.com’ as my address and please use my phone number ‘08012345678’ as the password. In less than 5 minutes the email had been setup, and within 15 minutes she registered her Facebook address using her phone number ‘08012345678’ again as her password.


Shola secured her phone with a pattern-password to prevent people from seeing her chats and pictures, however, unknown to her, Google keeps record of every activity she performs on her android phone including her YouTube Search and Watch history, browsing history, PICTURES (including deleted pictures), CONTACTS, location and PASSWORDS. Over the next 6 years, Shola had changed her phone 5 times. Before changing each phone, she had the habit of formatting the phone and removing the memory card believing all her pictures and secrets were completely erased. However she was wrong, Google was helping her SAFEGUARD EVERYTHING! YES EVERYTHING! In addition, while Shola was changing phones, she never saw the need to change her password to a more secure one!


Shola went on to bag a 1st Class degree in Economics from the prestigious UNN, within a short period of time she was gainfully employed. Because she was a very good mannered lady, she wasn’t short of suitors, many guys kept asking for her hand in marriage. After a very difficult decision, she decided Mr. Chima is the perfect man for her.


The preparations towards the marriage went on smoothly until she posted her wedding invitation on Facebook and on WhatsApp on 1st April, 2020. While several congratulatory calls and messages kept on coming. One of Shola’s contacts (Shasha) took her phone number, opened the chrome application on his phone and used her number (08012345678) number on ‘mail.google.com’ as a username, immediately the system prompted for a password, he pasted the same phone number (08012345678) and BOOM! He had access to her mails! He went ahead to visit ‘photos.google.com’ and guess what, he had access to all the pictures she snapped on her present and previous phones including the semi-naked and naked pictures she snapped while she was in the bathroom. ‘Ah! Naked pictures? Let me download them’ He screamed, Shola must have been visiting pornographic sites he thought. He swiftly went to visit ‘activity.google.com’, there he saw all the websites Shola had visited over the years and the Youtube videos she had watched in preparation for her wedding night.


That was not enough, Mr. Shasha the fraudster visited ‘passwords.google.com’ and BOOM! He had access to ALL THE PASSWORDS Shola SAVED on her phones including her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Passwords. He swiftly logged into her Facebook and posted all the naked pictures he downloaded from her Google account, he also posted the screenshot of her chats with other guys and also the sites visited on her Facebook page. Few minutes later, Shola was shocked to receive several calls from different people about the updates on her facebook page. Before she could log into her Facebook account, Mr. Chima called to tell her IT IS OVER BETWEEN THEM. Immediately after Mr. Chima finished speaking with her, Shola’s manager Mr. Sackwell called to notify her of her immediate sack from her organization. Confused, she said ‘this must be April fool, after all, this is 1st April’.


The moment Shola logged into her Facebook account and saw what happened. She screamed ‘O Jesus! I am finished’ ‘My village people! Oh my village people, what have I done?’. While she was still weeping, Mr. Shasha wasn’t yet done with his deadly act; he went ahead to visit ‘contacts.google.com’, there he saw over 186 saved contacts. 22 of which were Shola’s favourite contacts, Mr. Shasha went ahead to try each of the 22 contacts on the site mail.google.com, he found out 8 of them - Grace, Sinble, Dilan, Veli, Chichi, Ruth, Hauwa and Chicky all used their phone numbers as passwords for their g-mail accounts. Shola’s 8 friends were not spared either as they had their share of the embarrassment.


Don’t be like Shola, Never use your phone number as your password. If you have done that already, PLEASE CHANGE IT NOW!. And please don’t use passwords like ‘123456’, ‘654321’, ‘Password’, they can be easily guessed. MORE IMPORTANTLY, please visit https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols and Pause all Web and App activity and delete all your browsing history, Turn off location history. As a matter of fact disable every form of monitoring.