Buhari lifts ban on Twitter, with conditions

President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered a lifting on the ban placed on micro blogging site, Twitter in Nigeria, although with conditions attached.

The president stated this on Friday in his nationwide broadcast to Nigerians to mark the nation’s 61st independence.

Ripples Nigeria had reported that the Federal Government suspended the operations of Twitter in Nigeria on June 5.

This was in order to allow the government put measures in place to address identified negative trends exhibited by the social media platform.

Buhari noted that the Presidential Committee instituted to resolve the issue engaged with Twitter who resolved to meet the conditions laid out by the FG.

“Following the suspension of Twitter operations, Twitter Inc. reached out to the Federal Government of Nigeria to resolve the impasse. Subsequently, I constituted a Presidential Committee to engage Twitter to explore the possibility of resolving the issue.

Read also: 100 days after Twitter ban, Nigerian economy loses N247.8bn

“The Committee, along with its Technical Team, has engaged with Twitter and have addressed a number of key issues. These are National Security and Cohesion; Registration, Physical presence and Representation; Fair Taxation; Dispute Resolution; and Local Content.

“Following the extensive engagements, the issues are being addressed and I have directed that the suspension be lifted but only if the conditions are met to allow our citizens continue the use of the platform for business and positive engagements,” Buhari noted.

The president stated that the government was committed to ensuring that digital companies use their platform to enhance the lives of citizens, respect Nigeria’s sovereignty, cultural values and promote online safety.

He acknowledged 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”.

He however, lamented that recent events have shown that the platform is not just an innocuous platform for information dissemination, but that some users have misused the platform to organise, coordinate, and execute criminal activities, propagate fake news, and promote ethnic and religious sentiments.

This, according to him, led his government to move to address these negative trends, which led the suspension of the “operations of Twitter in Nigeria on June 5, 2021 to allow the Government put measures in place to address these challenges”.

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