Nigerian authorities on Monday called on all radio and television stations in the country to “suspend any support” for Twitter and immediately drop the accounts on this social network, the use of which he described as “unpatriotic”.
“We recommend that all audiovisual companies uninstall their Twitter accounts and use Twitter to search for information or sources of information,” National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) director Armstrong Idachaba wrote in a statement on Monday. . “He will be considered unpatriotic for any audiovisual media to continue to support Twitter,” Idachaba was quoted as saying by Agerpres.
The Ministry of Information and Culture announced on Friday evening that the government “suspended, for an indefinite period, the activities of the social network Twitter in Nigeria”.
The decision comes after the suspension on Wednesday by a message from President Buhari threatening to “treat in a language I understand” those responsible for the current violence in southeastern Nigeria, attributed by Igbo separatist authorities.
The post on Twitter has been strongly condemned across the country and the social network has estimated that the Nigerian president has violated the rules of conduct on hate speech.
The European Union (EU), Britain, the United States and Canada have accused Twitter of being suspended in a joint statement, and their ambassadors were received at a closed-door meeting Monday morning with Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama.
“Banning Twitter is primarily a means of shutting down the media,” the webmaster of a television channel told AFP. “We have to react, because if we don’t react, they can go further,” he added.
Nigerian media have a very strong presence on social networks, registering millions of followers on Twitter. The social network is very popular in Nigeria, where more than 39 million of the approximately 200 million Nigerians have a Twitter account, according to a survey.
The platforms play an important role in the public debate, with high-profile hashtags such as #BringBackOurGirls, which went viral with the abduction of 276 students by the Boko Haram group in 2014, or #EndSARS, which in 2020 gave its name to a large movement against police power and brutality.
