ABUJA – Parallex Bank, a commercial bank recently launched by Chris Oyakhilome’s Loveworld Nation (also known as Christ Embassy), hired a British cybersecurity firm, iZOOlogic to assault freedom of the press on Monday to take down THE WHISTLER website for about four hours.
THE WHISTLER had published a report of the launch of the bank titled “Christ Embassy Launches ‘Free’ Commercial Bank” using information provided on the bank’s own website on January 17.
The bank had said it would provide some interest-free services including “5 Free Interbank Transfers Daily” and zero maintenance fees on all accounts.
The report immediately went viral.
Apparently not expecting it would so quickly come into public scrutiny, the bank decided to engage iZOOlogic, which wrote THE WHISTLER to step down the report.
When this did not yield the desired result, the firm went through The Whistler’s hosting company to report a copyright infringement alleging that the online newspaper published a content it “did not authorise.”
The host, acting on the wrong information provided by Parallex Bank, took down the website for about four hours.
After being notified about the false allegation, The Whistler explained that there was no copyright violation since the information used in the report was publicly available on the bank’s own website.
The clarification led to the restoration of the newspaper’s website.
Parallex Bank’s action was no doubt an assault on media freedom and The Whistler has announced that it is prepared to seek redress in court for the damages caused.