Federal Government Lifts Twitter Ban

The Federal government of Nigeria has lifted its ban on twitter after incurring an estimated N500 billion loss from the social media company.

Chairman of the Technical committee for Nigeria-Twitter Engagement and Director-General National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi announced the lifting of the suspension on the 13^th of January 2022.

Kasifu Inuwa disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari, approved the lifting of the ban effective 12:00 a.m. Thursday Morning.

He further stated it was after a memo written to the President by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ibrahim, the approval was initiated. The Memo contained a request from the Minister of Communications to lift the ban on twitter taking into account recommendations from the Technical Committee Nigeria-Twitter Engagement’s.

The Federal government initially suspended twitter on the 4^th of June 2021, following presidents Buhari violation of the social media’s platform behavioral policy.

The following day, June 5^th 2021, the suspension of twitter’s operations was effected by Nigeria’s telecom firms.

Concurrently, the deferment of twitter’s operations cost Nigeria approximately N104.02 million every hour. In other words, Nigeria lost N1.7 million every minute since the start of the ban bringing the total loss to N546,5 million.

The Nigerian government has explained the new engagement with twitter will foster a dynamic and progressive relationship in global digital diplomacy.

Texts from the statement: Twitter is committed to establishing a legal entity in Nigeria during the first quarter of 2022. The legal entity will register with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). The establishment of the entity is Twitter’s first step in demonstrating its long-term commitment to Nigeria.