The Nigerian government has disclosed the details of negotiations it had with Twitter about lifting the ban it placed on the operations of the social media platform in June 2021.
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| Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed |
Twitter was slammed with suspension after it removed the tweet of the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari from the official account of the president.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, made the explanation, reacting to claims by an erstwhile staff of the micro-blogging platform, that Twitter did not enter into any negotiation with the Nigerian government based on the ban placed on it in Nigeria.
Lai Mohammed spoke at the start of the 13th edition of ‘PMB Administration Scorecard Series (2015-2023)’ on Monday.
According to the Minister, the negotiation of the Nigerian government and Twitter commenced on 11 June 2021 after Twitter’s Vice President in charge of Public Policy, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Sinead McSweeney, sent a letter to President Buhari.
While exposing a copy of the letter, the Minister revealed: “That letter kick-started a number of activities that culminated in the extensive negotiation.
“After the letter, the Federal Government announced its team to discuss with Twitter. The team, chaired by the Minister of Information and Culture, also comprised the Attorney General of the Federation and Honourable Minister of Justice, Honourable Ministers of Communications and Digital Economy; Foreign Affairs as well as Works and Housing, Honourable Minister of State for Labour and Employment and the Director-General, National Intelligence Agency.”
Lai Mohammed said, the negotiation between the Nigerian government and Twitter finally resulted to the lifting of the ban on operations of the social media platform in the country in January 2022.
The Minister said: “The back-and-forth negotiation culminated in a series of agreements that paved the way for the lifting of the Twitter suspension in January this year.
“Gentlemen, with the facts that we have supplied, you can now see that the fellow who reportedly alleged that Twitter did not negotiate with Nigeria is either being economical with the truth or didn’t even understand the workings of the company where he worked.”
