President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday announced a conditional lifting of the ban on Twitter, which the government imposed on the micro-blogging platform on June 5, 2021.
The president announced this in his Independence Day speech and explained that the lifting of the ban was conditional on some requirements being met to allow Nigerians to continue the use of the platform for business and positive engagements.
Buhari said that representatives of the government and officials of Twitter had met several times to discuss issues relating to national security and cohesion; Twitter’s registration and physical presence and representation in Nigeria, fair taxation, dispute resolution, and local content.
“As a country, we are committed to ensuring that digital companies use their platform to enhance the lives of our citizens, respect Nigeria’s sovereignty, cultural values and promote online safety,” Buhari said.
Giving insight into the possible cause of the ban, Buhari said that some users of social media have misused the platform to organise, coordinate, and execute criminal activities, propagate fake news, and promote ethnic and religious sentiments.
He noted that social media is a very useful platform that has enabled millions of Nigerians to connect with loved ones, promote their businesses, socialise, and access news and other information. “However, recent events have shown that the platform is not just an innocuous platform for information dissemination,” he said.
