FG To Lift Twitter Ban Soon – Lai Mohammed

The federal government of Nigeria has announced its intention to lift the ban on Twitter in a matter of days.

The disclosure was made on Wednesday by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed while briefing newsmen shortly after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja.

Mohammed stated that the government negotiation with the micro-blogging platform is at an advanced stage already, saying most of the conditions given to the platform have been accepted.

He revealed that areas still pending include setting up an office and having a Twitter staff of management cadre that will serve as the country representative.

He disclosed that the microblogging platform had already agreed to set up an office in Nigeria, but that the earliest it could do that was 2022.

Naija News recalls the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari had on June 4, 2021, ordered the indefinite suspension of Twitter in Nigeria.

The directive was sequel to the deletion of Buhari’s tweet where the President made reference to the nation’s civil war experience, which according to Twitter violated the rules.

Following the ban, many Nigerians, including civil society groups had condemned the decision of the federal government to ban Twitter in the country, arguing that it was an attempt to gag free press.

Some persons in order to bypass the government restriction and continue to use Twitter, did so through the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN).

But Minister Mohammed in the update given on Wednesday, expressed optimism that within a few days, or weeks, all pending issues should have been resolved.