200 days after, Nigeria’s economy loses N506 billion to twitter ban

Today, December 22 makes it exactly 200 days since the administration of President Muhammdu Buhari blocked Nigerians from accessing twitter and this has cost the economy a whopping N506.4 billion.

On June 4, the Federal Government announced the suspension of Twitter after the social media platform deleted one of President Buhari’s tweets.

In the early hours of June 5, 2021 telecommunication companies blocked its subscribers from accessing the micro-blogging platform in obedience to directive from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

Checks on NetBlocks, a website that tracks the cost of shutdown in an economy, revealed that in the last 200 days Nigeria’s economy had lost N104.02m ($250,600) every hour to the ban on Twitter.

It has been 4,800 hours (200 days) since the social networking site was blocked; this comes to over N506.4 billion.

While giving his Independence Day speech, Buhari hinted that the ban would continue until Twitter registered in Nigeria, had a physical presence, and representation.

Read also: Twitter ban a win-win, not all about immediate taxation —Buhari aide

Recently, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, said Twitter had agreed to the nation’s conditions for the suspension to be lifted.

Keyamo, who is also a member of the committee set up to engage Twitter over its suspension, said, “The reason why the President took that step is to recalibrate our relationship with Twitter and not to drive them away from our country.

“That recalibration, we have started it and the president graciously added me to the committee.”

But there was no information from twitter yet on if indeed it had agreed to the Nigerian government’s conditions.

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