Twitter blocked in Nigeria after President Muhammadu Buhari's tweet was deleted
Nigeria's Information Minister, Lai Muhammad, said today, Friday, that his country's government has suspended indefinitely the operations of the American social network "Twitter", in a move that comes after deleting a tweet by the country's president.
The minister indicated in a statement carried by "Reuters" agency that the suspension action came after "the continuous use of the platform for activities that would undermine the presence of companies in Nigeria."
Lai Mohamed did not go into details about this reason or how Twitter would affect local businesses, and it was not immediately clear what the minister meant by the suspension of operations. Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa and the largest in terms of population as well.
Two days ago, Twitter deleted the tweet of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, and suspended his account for 12 hours.
She said in a statement that the deleted tweet referred to the civil war that raged between 1967 and 1970, due to the secession of the Biafra region in the far southeast of Nigeria, a conflict that claimed a million lives.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari wrote: "Those of us who have been in the field for thirty months and fought war will treat them in the language they understand." Twitter's statement indicated that the tweet violated its policy regarding the site, which prompted it to suspend the account for 12 hours.
For his part, the Nigerian Minister of Information rejected the move taken by Twitter, stressing that President Buhari has the full right to express his dissatisfaction with the violence of a banned organization.
Source:1
