The Federal Government has said that the conditions which it recently recommended before the lifting of the ban imposed on microblogging platform, Twitter, will be applicable to all over-the-top and other social media platforms in Nigeria.
This is coming about 2 weeks after President Muhammadu Buhari directed the conditional lifting of the ban on Twitter.
According to NAN, this was made known by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, when he featured on a phone-in programme of TV Continental, “This Morning,” on Monday.
What the Minister of Information and Culture is saying
Although Mohammed did not disclose the recommendations by the Federal Government ministerial negotiation team that engaged with Twitter on the suspension, he said its report would be submitted to the President.
Mohammed, who chaired the federal government team, however, reiterated that the engagements with the microblogging and social media platform had been positive and fruitful.
The Minister said, “All I can say is that the recommendations we are going to make will not only be applicable to Twitter but they will be applicable to all OTTs and other social media platforms in Nigeria.
“Today, we are dealing with Twitter, we don’t want a situation where we will be dealing with Facebook tomorrow and Instagram the next day. Our recommendations will be very comprehensive.
“You will recall that during the 61st Independence anniversary celebration, the president said Twitter will return to Nigeria as soon as they meet the conditions of government.
“Even last night, the ministerial team met under my chairmanship and we reviewed the position of things. I want to say that we should wait for the committee to officially give its reports to the president but things are looking very positive and rosy.
“After submitting our reports and recommendations to the president, I will be disposed to say what we agreed and what have been met and what has not been met.”
What you should know
- Recall that on June 5, 2021, the Federal Government suspended the operations of Twitter indefinitely in the country citing double standards by the microblogging and social media platform, and the persistent use of the platform for activities that were capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.
- The suspension was announced despite public outcry, days after Twitter deleted a post by President Muhammadu Buhari for allegedly violating its policy.
- The Federal Government later set up a dialogue team led by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, to interface with Twitter on the way forward.
- The Federal Government had in August said that Twitter had agreed to 7 out of the 10 demands that it put forward to lift the suspension it placed on the microblogging and social networking platform.
- Buhari, while directing the conditional lifting of the Twitter ban, announced that the Presidential Committee he constituted, along with its Technical Team, to engage the microblogging platform to explore the possibility of resolving the issue that led to the suspension of its activities in Nigeria had successfully addressed a number of key issues.
- There has been a lot of criticisms of the federal government’s plan to regulate the media in recent time, which has been described as moves to gag the media.
