Early this week, Twitter deleted Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet. The Nigerian President had posted threatening tweets which got Twitter users to report them as they incited violence.
“Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War. Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand,” read the post.
Twitter deleted that tweet on Wednesday and suspended his account for 12 hours since his tweet violated the company’s policy regarding abusive behaviour.
On Friday, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Information and Culture announced on Twitter that they were indefinitely suspending Twitter’s operations in the country.
“The Federal Government has suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, in Nigeria.”
According to the post, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the country’s Minister of Information and Culture said the suspension was because of “persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.”
After this announcement, Twitter said that the ban was deeply concerning and that they’re investigating it and will provide updates when they knew more.
Users in Nigeria have now resorted to using VPNs to access Twitter.
The information minister also announced that the Federal Government direct the country’s National Broadcasting l Commission (NBC) to immediately commence the process of licensing all OTT(over-the-top media services) and social media operations in Nigeria.
Twitter recently set up its first African offices in neighbouring Ghana that angered the information minister saying that the social network has been influenced by the country’s misrepresentation in the media which included social media-organized protests for police reform.
SERAP, a legal non-profit group said that they will sue the Nigerian government and its president over the suspension.
