The police spokesperson in Akwa Ibom State, Timfon John, stated that she received over 3,000 phone calls on a single day, 4 August, after publishing her phone number on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.
The callers were mostly men, most of whom wanted to profess their love for her, she said.
“100 calls in 10 mins?” Ms John, a deputy superintendent of police, wrote on X about an hour after publishing the phone number. “Abeg, make una try breathe.”
She sounded exasperated.
“Sir, calls wan wound me,” she stated, while responding to a tweet from her Delta State counterpart, Bright Edafe, who told her that she would not be able to “breathe” because of the numerous calls.
“If na me, nobody go call. Chai,” Benjamin Hundeyin, the then spokesperson for the police in Lagos State, tweeted at her. Mr Hundeyin is now the force spokesperson.
Ms John’s original post on X has over 1,500 comments and 1.3 million views. It has over 4,000 comments on Facebook, with some asking her if she was married and if she would consider marrying them.
One Twitter user, @king_danyk1, said on X that he noticed Ms John did not wear any ring on her finger. “That means I’m free to shoot my shot?”
“What crime can I commit that will make me be in your custody forever?” another Twitter user, @walegraced, asked the officer.
Another Twitter user, @Oswald524, told the officer that the numerous calls were a price she had to pay for being beautiful.
“I have a record of more than 3,000 calls,” Ms John told our reporter.
She said that many of the callers told her they would like to marry her, and that some of them just wanted to confirm that she was the person they were talking to on the phone.
She said the many calls did not distract her.
“First, we need to understand that these people are human. We need to learn how to manage humans. We are not wired the same way, we have different upbringings, different morals at home,” she responded.
“Do the callers use abusive language?” our reporter asked her.
“I don’t let those things get to me because I don’t expect those persons who use abusive language against me to think like me. I try to put myself in the place of those persons. If somebody abuses me, I will say thank you and leave. The most important thing for me is to put across my message.”
“Most times I make a post, a lot of people don’t even take the message. Rather, they are like, You are beautiful, you are this, you are that.”
The officer said the romantic words from the men on social media do not distract her from being professional.
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