On Friday, June 4, 2021, the Government of Nigeria delivered on its long-standing threat to regulate social media in the country. The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, announced the “indefinite suspension” of Twitter.com, a social microblogging platform days after it deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari. By the morning of Saturday, June 5, Nigerians could not access the platform.
Social media has been a vital communication tool for many Nigerian youths. They have used the various platforms to stay connected, find job opportunities, promote their work and earn a living. It is also a tool for garnering votes, as we witnessed with the onset of the Buhari administration.
The Government seems to have hastily suspended the platform after a tweet by the President’s official Twitter handle was taken down by the tech company for violating its rules. In the tweet, President Buhari threatened the people of the South-East in response to the rising unrest in that region, saying he would “treat them in the language they understand.” The language he referred to was about the Nigerian Civil War, which claimed an estimated three million lives.
It is well to note that the same post was made on Facebook, and the platform also took it down, yet the Government’s attention isn’t sweeping that platform. Instead, the antagonism is very targeted against Twitter. This hostility ignited during the #EndSARS protests when the CEO of the company, Jack Dorsey, openly supported the movement in October 2020. Since then, the Government has been on the warpath to discredit the platform as a propagator of fake news.
During the 2014/2015 election campaigns, candidate Buhari vigorously used Twitter and other social media platforms to drive the campaign that brought him to power after failing three times in 2003, 2007 and 2011. It was also the tool that shaped his rebranding to appeal to the younger citizens, promising them a “change.”
Now that he has succeeded, he is rendering the platform that engineered his success useless. You can’t burn the bridge people built in helping you cross over a gully and expect them to be pleased. And you can’t suddenly take away the livelihoods of millions of people and expect them to throw you a party.
Buhari and the APC used Twitter to rightfully discredit the Goodluck Jonathan government. But in a turnabout, Twitter has become a tool where Nigerians are now to call out the Buhari Presidency for not fulfilling its campaign promises. One of those promises was to create three million jobs every year, which remains unfulfilled as the unemployment rate has worsened since he resumed office. Nigeria’s unemployment rate has risen from 27.1% in the second quarter of 2020 to 33.3% in the fourth quarter of 2020, indicating that about 23.2 million Nigerians are unemployed at the end of 2020.
Young Nigerians have sought to reduce unemployment by creating digital jobs through social media, and a lot of them have devised means to earn a living and survive in this country. By blocking off social media, the Government cuts off Nigerian youths from the rest of the world and the global opportunities that await them. The Government, whose responsibility was to create jobs, is taking away a significant source of their income.
This Government seems ready to stifle the youth instead of nurturing their growth. Firstly, it was the social media bill that was silently sponsored by an APC Senator. The bill seeks to give the Police the right to force internet service providers to block access to social media platforms in an area where false information is being disseminated. It also stipulates a two-year jail term for anyone who posts abusive statements on social media with an option of a ₦2 million fine.
Next, the CBN cut off cryptocurrency, which many Nigerians had embraced as a means of income and job and wealth creation. It is also well to note that last year, a directive from the CBN to banks ensured that the accounts of people who participated or contributed to the October #EndSARS protests were frozen. Which they are, to date, further financially crippling the youths.
Now, the Government has set its sights on Twitter, which over the years has become a tool for young business owners to promote their work, relying on Twitter’s organised interface to reach more customers and sell their products. All because of a deleted tweet, which violated Twitter’s rules.
Has social media become an unpredictable platform? Yes. People worldwide disseminate information without censure, and many are liable to pass unverifiable facts, big corporations and governments included. Former US President Trump was guilty of this as he passed unverified medical facts about the COVID-19 virus many times, which eventually led to the suspension of his account.
Just recently, the official Twitter handle of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) posted photos of a privately-owned agri-business company based in Kaduna, claiming it is part of the Government’s achievement in agriculture. However, the tweet was taken down after the company owner called out the party for misinformation.
The Government needs to understand that freedom of speech is a right backed by the Nigerian Constitution in Section 39 (1), in which the people are functioning by using Twitter and Section 22, which allows the media to do so. We understand that social media needs to be made healthy again, but to do that, the Government should meet with the platform’s owners and dialogue. With June 12 approaching, it is imperative that the Government rescind this decision regarding what our democracy stands for and reach an agreement that would benefit the people and continually protect freedom of speech in this country.
The Nigerian government cannot hope that the people will willingly comply with the ban. How this Presidency handles this will determine if they can begin to reforge the fraying bonds that hold the Government and the people together or allow Nigeria to become the failed state it is already perceived to be.
