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.
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“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.
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“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.
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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.
Not distracted by the many calls
“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.
PREMIUM TIMES asked Ms John how she handles callers who stray off professional matters.
“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.
Journalists’ impression of Ms John
On the professional side, many journalists in Akwa Ibom said they enjoy working with the police spokesperson because of her humility and the respect she gives them.
Ms John was appointed police spokesperson in Akwa Ibom last year.
“She picks up my calls anytime I call her to confirm a story,” Iniabasi Umo, the Daily Trust correspondent in Akwa Ibom, told our reporter. “Most of my colleagues have said the same thing about her; we are very comfortable working with her.”
“She is doing well,” Idongesit Ashameri, the Daily Independent correspondent and a former chairperson of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in Akwa Ibom, said of Ms John.
READ ALSO: Building a safer Lagos: The role of police and interagency collaboration, By Adebisi Adams Oyeshakin
“Of course, we know she is relatively new on the job (as a police spokesperson), but she learns so fast. She is quite good at interpersonal relationships with individual journalists, and she is also quite good in her role as the image maker of the (police) command.
“She has won admiration by the way she juggles her job and her personal relationship with journalists. By this, I mean that despite her hectic schedule, she also finds time to attend media-related events and those concerning individual journalists. I am also aware that she intervenes when journalists have issues with the police. I feel she is on the right path.”
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