Nigeria’s Twitter ban has been lifted after seven months. The Twitter ban was lifted after the social media platform has promised to open a local office, among other agreements made with the authorities in Nigeria.
Twitter was suspended by the Nigerian government on the 4th of June, 2021, after the social media platform removed a post made by President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish regional secessionists.
It accused Twitter of being on the side of the secessionists. Telecoms companies subsequently blocked access to Twitter users in Nigeria.
However, many Nigerians continued to access Twitter with the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) despite the ban on the social media platform. Most corporate organizations and many media outlets had obeyed the federal government’s order.
Analysts believe the suspension of Twitter has cost the Nigerian economy millions of dollars, this has mostly affected small businesses which use the platform to get across to customers.
Director-General of the National Information Technology Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi said in a statement that Buhari has permitted to lift the ban.
“Twitter has agreed to act with a respectful acknowledgment of Nigerian laws and the national culture and history on which such legislation has been built…”, Abdullahi said in his statement.
The company would work with the federal government of Nigeria and the broader industry “to develop a Code of Conduct in line with global best practices, applicable in almost all developed countries”, the statement read.
Therefore, the Federal Government lifts the ban on Twitter operations in Nigeria from midnight of 13th January 2022.
Kashifu, who also chaired a joint technical committee of Nigerian and Twitter officials, said the United States company agreed to appoint a country representative to engage with Nigerian authorities and to obey local tax obligations.
