The Federal Government has imposed an indefinite suspension on the operations of micro-blogging platform, Twitter in Nigeria.
“The Federal Government has suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, in Nigeria,” the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture announced on Friday via Twitter.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, announced the suspension in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday, citing the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.
“The Minister said the Federal Government has also directed the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to immediately commence the process of licensing all OTT and social media operations in Nigeria,” he said.
This development is the culmination of the row between the Nigerian government and Twitter following the deletion of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweets on Wednesday by Twitter.
The deleted tweet was the President’s comment that he would treat the separatist in the southeast in the language that they understand.
President Buhari in a number of tweets on Tuesday via his verified Twitter handle @mbuhari, had tweeted: “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.”
Twitter raised a number of complaints about the tweet before deleting it, saying: “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules”.
