Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Paystack, Ezra Olubi, has come under fire and is now a subject of intense scrutiny, with calls for his investigation after a series of old tweets containing alarming content surfaced.
The tech guru is known for Paystack, Nigeria’s foremost fintech unicorn acquired by Stripe in 2020 for over $200 million.
The controversial tweets, posted between 2010 and 2017 on Mr Olubi’s verified handle @0x (now deactivated), includes explicit references to sexual acts with animals, jokes about paedophilia, and claims of knowingly transmitting HIV and Hepatitis B.
In one widely circulated screenshot dated 2012, the Paystack CTO described himself as a “cat lover” in his bio while making graphic remarks about sexual intercourse with cats. Several tweets also appeared to make light of child sexual abuse, including a 2014 post claiming, without any medical basis, that “sex with a minor cures HIV.”
The scandal erupted in the early hours of Wednesday after a former partner of Mr Olubi, with whom he was reportedly in a polyamorous relationship, publicly accused him of emotional abuse and manipulative behaviour.
The accusation prompted users on X to scrutinise his old posts, leading to the rapid spread of archived screenshots.
By Wednesday evening, #EzraOlubi and related hashtags dominated Nigerian trends on X, amassing over 180,000 posts within 24 hours. Many users expressed horror, with some tagging the Nigeria Police Force and the Office of the President, demanding investigation and possible prosecution under Nigeria’s Criminal Code, which prescribes up to 14 years imprisonment for bestiality and severe penalties for child defilement.
Remember that Mr Olubi was conferred with the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) in 2022 for his contributions to technology and youth empowerment. However, Nigerians have now launched an online petition calling for the immediate revocation of the honour.
While neither Paystack nor its parent company, Stripe, had issued an official statement, the issue has gained wide traction on X.
Even as his X account was deactivated on Wednesday afternoon, multiple users had already archived the controversial tweets, with one repository on GitHub titled “Ezra Olubi Evidence Archive” gaining thousands of views.
