The social media space in Nigeria went into frenzy on Monday after the former presidential candidate Adamu Garba’s ‘Crowwe’ application got deleted from the Google play store.
Recalled that Mr Adamu Garba had called Nigeria government to ban the microblogging platform, Twitter when it deleted president Buhari’s genocidal tweet.
The Crowwe app, which has been described as an instant messaging and financial transaction app that comes with a digital wallet that helps to transfer and receive money while chatting, has received the worst reviews.
Following the announcement of Twitter ban by the President Buhari-led administration, the former presidential candidate presented the Crowwe app as an alternative to the microblogging website that can help “to grow Nigeria.”
“Join Crowwe now! Build your country, Build your people and Build your Brand. Join Crowwe now., Mr Garba tweeted
“This is the best opportunity to grow Nigeria to Build Nigeria, Crowwe to the World.”
The former presidential candidate had also called for a ban of the microblogging platform when it deleted president Buhari’s genocidal tweet.
“Twitter has no right to infuse into our local political affairs. It’s a company, not a government. By removing our democratically elected President’s speech to the people of Nigeria, Twitter needs to shut down from Nigerian internet space. Twitter need to get out of Nigeria,” he tweeted.
Garba’s attempt to seize the opportunity of Twitter Ban in Nigeria to advertise his app met stonewall rejection from Nigerians.
Twitter users criticised the application on many grounds including its privacy policy. For instance, critics discovered that Crowwe’s Terms and Conditions were copied from another app, Spotify. The discovery was also verified by Dubawa, a fact-checking platform, to be true.
“Check the Crowwe app’s terms and conditions. It’s the SAME thing as Spotify. They didn’t even bother editing. Like if you click on the hyperlink it redirects you to Spotify theft. What sort of pangolo app is that?” A critic alleged on social media.
The app has since received terrible reviews which could be responsible for its disappearance on the play store app.
In one instance, a scathing review of the app goes: “This App represents everything that defines wrong. From the space it takes on phone, to the design interface and user experience, it makes me wonder if thoughts went into the development of this App. For the benefit of doubt, check the login icon and how unnecessarily bad it looks, the dashboard looks fraudulent and the trademark looks like that of ISIS. I am suspecting the App to be from that side. Please take it down so that people can be protected. Zero Star App.”
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Another reviewer alleged that the app was being used to recruit members for terrorist organisations.
“This app has been found to be used for recruitment purposes by terrorist orgs like Boko Haram and ISWAP. It steals your personal data which the developers turn in for phising. It is also harmful to your device. In fact, I had to do factory reset to be able to make my device efficient again after installing this app. I would recommend that YOU DO NOT INSTALL THIS APP. Look at the 4 star ratings, pay attention to the names and be convinced that the app is specifically designed to enhance terrorism.”
In yet another review, Bennette is upset that the app keeps attacking people with porn ads.
“Admin, please do something about the frequent pornographic ads. Can’t believe the useless app accessed my photos and videos without permission.”
When reached for comments on the development on Monday, Mr Garba, however, said that the company was working on updating the application. He said that is why the app was deleted on play store.
The Newsflash Nigeria’s checks on Google Play Console help, however, revealed one does not necessarily have to remove an application before updating it.
“Once your update is available, users can download the update on your app’s store listing page or from their My apps page on the Play Store app. If a user has turned on automatic updates for your app, the update will be downloaded and installed automatically,” it explained.
Google removes applications that are perceived to have violated its policy.
“Once your app is removed, the published version of your app won’t be available on Google Play until a compliant update is submitted,” the app store policy states.
“Until a policy violation has been fixed, don’t republish a removed app,” it added.
