The Federal Government has suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, in Nigeria.
The
suspension was announced on Friday by the Minister of Information and Culture,
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, via a statement issued in Abuja.
The minister
cited the persistent use of the Twitter platform for activities that were
capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.
Mohammed
stated that the Federal Government had also directed the National Broadcasting
Commission (NBC) to immediately commence the process of licensing all OTT and
social media operations in Nigeria.
Twitter had
Wednesday deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet posted Tuesday where he threatened
to deal with secessionists “in the language they understand”.
The social
media giant had said the tweet violated the Twitter Rules.
The President
had released a series of tweets after meeting with the Chairman of Independent
National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, at the State House in
Abuja on Tuesday, wherein he warned that those promoting insurrection and those
sponsoring destruction of critical national assets would soon have the shock of
their lives.
He also
threatened to deal with “those misbehaving today” “in the language they
understand.”
Though the
President tweeted five tweets on his meeting with Prof. Yakubu, it was the last
tweet that Twitter said violated its rules and was deleted, while the remaining
four tweets were retained.
In the
controversial tweet which had been widely criticized by twitter users,
President Buhari said: “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.”
The federal
government had accused Twitter of taking sides and said it’s was suspicious of
the microblogging site’s role in the IPOB agitation for Biafa.
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