Nigeria Lifts Ban on Twitter

Nigeria has finally lifted the ban on the social media platform “Twitter’, this is coming after seven months that the company’s activity was clamped down in the country.

Nigeria’s government suspended Twitter last June after the company deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari about punishing regional secessionists, they accused twitter of siding with secessionists.

However, today January 13 2022 the Nigeria’s government announced that its lifting the ban on the social media platform after twitter agreed to their terms and conditions of operating in the country.

According to the Nigerian government, Twitter has agreed to:

1. Register in Nigeria during the first quarter of 2022
2. Appoint a designated country representative
3. Comply with tax obligations in Nigeria
4. Enrol Nigeria in its portal for direct communications between government officials and Twitter to manage prohibited content that violates Twitter community rules
5. Act with a respectful acknowledgement of Nigerian laws

On the other hand, Twitter Tweeted that their are pleased” to be restored in the country and was “deeply committed to Nigeria” but did not say if it had agreed to the government demands.

The ban on twitter affected many businesses in the country, which got a toll on the country’s economy, even though some individuals access the platform using VPNs and proxies.

The lift has taken effect immediately as all the Internet Service Providers in Nigeria has unblock the twitter portal allowing Nigerians to access it once again.

Businesses and people in Nigeria express their happiness over the lift on twitter ban as seen in their welcome back tweets. some are now taking time to recognise the VPNs that enabled them to access twitter during what they called the dark days..

Some Analysts believed that the lift on twitter ban is political due to up coming 2023 election, since the ban is lifted already without twitter complying to the said terms and conditions.