Recall that exactly on June 5th 2021 the federal government of Nigeria suspended the social media handle twitter for allegedly deleting President Buhari’s tweet , these spark a lot of concern and reaction across the country including locally and international organizations such as the the socio-Economic Rights and accountability project[SERAP], The Nigerian Bar Association, Amnesty International, The British, Canadian and Swedish diplomatic missions to Nigeria, united state and the European union etc.
Recall that Twitter deleted the tweet of Mr. President warning the southeastern tribe predominately the igbo’s of a likely reoccurrence of 1967 clash between the Biafran civil war linking the incidence to the current insurgency in the south eastern region of the country, the authorities accused the social media of siding with secessionists, in erupting the co-unity and oneness of the country the Nigerian government reacted to these as a means of twitter using the platform to spread fake news and allowing many Nigerians to use nit as a means of sparking unrest in the country, as of what happened during the #endsars protest which took off from the social media platform spreading across the country like wild fire and causing a big mayhem to citizen
A lot of reactions and complains from well meaning Nigerians within and in Diaspora about the bad effect this will have in the countries social media, businesses and other means of livelihood of Nigerians, the rights to freedom of speech and personal opinion, rights to air their views on matters at it concerns them, Nigerians are very used to twitter more commonly than any other social media platform and it has been used as a mobilizing tool, activist mostly used it to arouse support and campaign to support their course
THE AFTERMATH OF THE BAN
According to a reliable source three days after the ban the country looses over 6 billion naira and after that worsening the employment rate in the country and due to this, Nigerians had to look for alternative source to continue to engage twitter thru virtual private network (VPN)despite warning by the minister of justice and attorney general of the federation Abubakar Malami to persecute citizens who bypass the ban to using other protocol to twitter. Later on EXPRESSVPN reported and over 200% increase in web traffic and searches for VPN spiked across the country.
minister for information and culture stated that the ban would be lifted once twitter accept the terms and condition of with local licensing, regulations, registrations and conditions by the government one of the condition been that it will not allow it platform to be used as a means of propaganda, and causing nonchalant activities in the country that may lead to disruption of peace and unrest in the country.
THE RESOLUTION
in june 2021 twitter did announce that it will go into talks with the federal government over lifting the ban of it’s operation in Nigeria
Nigeria’s president, Muhammedu Buhari in his independence day speech 1st October 2021 stipulate five terms and conditions
• Must pay attention to national security
• Registration and physical presence and representation in Nigeria
• Fiar taxation
• Dispute resolution and local content
On the 13 of January 2022, the seven months Ban on twitter was lifted by the Federal government of Nigeria, as twitter have reportedly met all it terms and condition
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