The government of Nigeria announced this Wednesday night that it will abolish the veto imposed on Twitter, after seven months, in the most populous country in Africa.
“President Muhammadu Buhari approved the lifting of Twitter’s suspension in Nigeria as of midnight today,” announced the director of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi.
The Nigerian authorities say that after several months of negotiations, Twitter agreed to “all the conditions set by the federal government”, especially regarding the imposition and management of content that does not respect the laws of Nigeria.
Contacted by AFP on Wednesday night, Twitter did not confirm the announcement.
The Nigerian government announced in June 2021 the suspension of Twitter for an “indefinite duration”, after accusing the social network of having a “suspicious mission” against the Executive, and of tolerating messages on its platform from the head of a separatist group inciting violence in the southeast of the country.
Twitter’s suspension came two days after the social network deleted a message from President Muhammadu Buhari.
The head of state threatened to “deal with a language they understand” to the authors of the violence in southeastern Nigeria -who would be, according to the authorities, the Igbo separatists-, which revived the painful memories of the Biafra war , which left more than a million dead in the 1960s.
The suspension of Twitter and the fact that the government ordered the audiovisual media to delete their accounts on that network, as a sign of “patriotism”, caused a stir in Nigeria, a young country, with a population highly connected to networks and in which Twitter is a relevant tool for social protest.
The European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada expressed their rejection of the suspension of Twitter.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx