Inside Africa: Nigerian Government Bans Twitter After the Platform Deletes President’s Tweet
PIUS UTOMI EKPEI
The Nigerian government elected to block Twitter this past week after the social media platform deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari, which allegedly threatened secessionist groups in the southeast who had previously been responsible for attacks on Nigerian government offices. The government proceeded to label the microblogging platform’s presence in Nigeria as “very, very suspect.” The country’s attorney general announced that Nigerians dodging that ban would be prosecuted.
In the tweet deleted by Twitter on Wednesday, Mr. Buhari drew a connection between Nigeria’s civil war decades ago and attacks on offices of the national electoral commission by arsonists and gunmen. Most of the attacks have been in the southeast, which declared itself the Republic of Biafra in the 1960s and fought a devastating war for secession. Mr. Buhari, who has 4.1 million followers on Twitter, was a commander on the side of the Nigerian government during the war.“ Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War,” he wrote in the now-deleted post. Those “who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.” Some saw his words as a threat of genocide against the Igbo ethnic group that is in the majority in Nigeria’s southeast. Twitter said the tweet violated its “abusive behavior” policy.
The decision to delete the tweet was “disappointing” but not the only reason for the nationwide ban, said President Buhari, who added that the ban was temporary but did not give a date for when it would be lifted.
Twitter users in Nigeria expressed outrage at the blocking of one of the main outlets that they have to criticize their government and try to hold it to account. The platform acted as a key forum of communication and publicity for protesters in EndSARS, the youth-driven movement that began with calls to abolish an abusive state police unit, later leading to much wider demands for better governance in West Africa’s largest democracy. Many circumvented the suspension by using virtual private networks to access the service, raising questions of how effective the ban will be.
Many groups, including the Nigerian Bar Association, threatened legal action if the government did not rescind the ban, while Amnesty International called for an immediate reversal and countries including the US, the European Union and Canada condemned the move. Since the ban was introduced, Nigerians have been downloading virtual private networks (VPN) to access the site, while also turning to Facebook.
“Thank God for VPN” was trending on Twitter in Nigeria on Saturday, and many Nigerians took to the platform to comment that Africa’s biggest democracy was showing worrying signs of a dictatorship in suppressing the right to free speech. “Suspending Twitter in Nigeria is just one more way of stating that people’s rights do not matter,” Osai Ojigho, Amnesty International’s country director in Nigeria, said in a tweet. “This is a dangerous precedent.”
The government has not spoken of any arrests, but there are unconfirmed reports of people being stopped and their phones searched for the Twitter app in some parts of Nigeria. Twitter is normally the main platform to break the news of arrests and to rally public support against security force action across Nigeria. Now fears are resonating that people could be detained without anyone knowing. To make things worse, the courts have been crippled by a workers' strike so people may languish in police cells for a long time.
In a news conference after the president’s tweet was deleted, the information minister, Lai Mohammed, compared Twitter’s actions in Nigeria to those the company took after the riot at the U.S. Capitol in January, including banning the account of former President Donald J. Trump.
“When people were burning police stations and killing policemen in Nigeria during EndSARS, for Twitter it was about the right to protest,” he said. “But when a similar thing happened in the Capitol, it became an insurrection.”
The reason for blocking Twitter, Mr. Mohammed said later, was “the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.”
The suspension has been criticized by many Nigerian users who have used the platform to criticize the government. Former President Trump, meanwhile, has cheered Nigeria's ban on Twitter amid his own criticism of the company after it permanently suspended him following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Twitter said Saturday that it was “deeply concerned” by Nigeria’s action and would work to restore access “for all those in Nigeria who rely on Twitter to communicate and connect with the world.” Nigeria joins the ranks of China, North Korea and Iran in issuing a ban on Twitter, while Uganda, Turkey and Egypt have suspended the app during elections or political unrest. Twitter said that it was “deeply concerned” as access to the internet was “an essential human right in modern society” and it “will work to restore access for all those in Nigeria who rely on Twitter to communicate”.
It’s fundamental in a functioning democracy to allow for freedom of speech among the populous. Silencing voices fosters the means for further unrest and distaste for government control. “We must resist every attempt at a dictatorship,” wrote Editi Effiong, a filmmaker who covered EndSARS.
“The last move of a failing Government is always to try to silence everyone who points out that they are failing,” posted Mark Essien, a Nigerian entrepreneur and software developer.