Banning Twitter was hard decision to take – FG

The Nation

By Oyebola Owolabi

The Federal Government has stated the decision to ban twitter was hard to take because it was a veritable platform for information dissemination and business.

Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed stated this on Thursday at a meeting of the Progressives Governors’ Forum (PGF) with information managers of APC at the Federal and State levels.

The meeting, which held at the Lagos House in Ikeja, was also an avenue to identify challenges facing information managers and chart better ways of pushing positive narratives about the government.

Mohammed said: “It was a tough decision to take, considering that many of our youths also use the platform for business.”

The Minister also said the government has uncovered about 476 online publications working to bring down the All Progressives Congress (APC) led Federal Government.

Mohammed spoke on ‘Mitigating contemporary challenges of Information and Communication Management – Regulatory Issues and Requirement’.

He identified poor funding, new digital media and lack of synergy among information managers of government as some of the challenges which should be overcome if the war against misinformation would be won.

He said: “The social media is a double-edged sword, providing opportunities and challenges, perhaps in equal measures. We recently had to suspend the operations of twitter because of the threat posed by the gross abuse of the platform to the nation’s peace and unity.

“Twitter is the platform of choice for separatist campaigners, especially those of them residing outside the country, who use it to issue directives to their followers in Nigeria to attack our security forces as well as to burn police stations and INEC offices.

“It was a tough decision to take, considering that many of our youths also use the platform for business. Such is the challenge posed by the social media.

“At its request, the government has agreed to engage with Twitter and, hopefully, we can both chart a path forward, without compromising our national interest.

“While many have accused us of stifling the press with the ban, we say Twitter is just one of many social media platforms being used by Nigerians. WhatsApp, which is most used by Nigerians, is there. And there is Facebook, Instagram, Google hangout, etc.”

This news originally appeared in The Nation.