The Federal Government says the failure of Twitter to take down offensive tweets of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, amongst other “sins”, are the reasons behind suspending the social networking service in Nigeria.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, made this known while speaking on NTA’s Good Morning Nigeria show on Friday, June 11.
Mohammed alleged that Twitter and its founder Jack Dorsey have made several attempts to destabilize the country.
He said; “Before its suspension, we made several pleas to them to remove the tweets where Nigeria is described as a zoo where all of us are described as monkeys.
“We also pleaded to Twitter to delete the tweet where he said that if a Nigerian soldier enters into Biafra, it is death.
“Twitter, however, said that those tweets did not offend their own rules.
“It gets out of hand when attacks on police and military formations, police and army officers became unabated and we said at this point, we will need to suspend their operations.’’
Meanwhile, Twitter on Friday said it had informed the Nigerian government that it was ready for an open discussion over the suspension of the microblogging and social networking service by the West African country.
It made this known in a statement issued by Twitter Policy, adding that it will continue to advocate for free and open internet everywhere.
”Today marks one week since Twitter was blocked in Nigeria. We have informed the Nigerian government that we are ready to meet for an open discussion to address mutual concerns and see the service restored.”
“We remain advocates for the free and #OpenInternet everywhere. #KeepitOn”, Twitter Policy said.
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