THE GOAL OF THE TWITTER BAN AND THE WAY FORWARD FOR NIGERIANS WITHIN THE COUNTRY
Many quotes were made by one time president of Uganda, Idi Amin Dada but the one I will never forget is his quote in relation to freedom of expression. He said: "There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech". This quote expresses the intentions of a dictator whom many agreeably saw Idi Amin to be during his reign. Well, I am not here to write about Idi Amin rather, I am about to write about a modern dictator not in the military regalia like Idi Amin (even though Buhari was once in the military regalia too) - the President of Nigeria!
The current situation with regards twitter ban in Nigeria simply suggests that the rights and freedom of Nigerians is not valued anymore. Sadly, that has been the case for many years. For the President of a nation to agree to the suggestion of his Minister of Information & Culture (Lai Mohammed) and some other loyalists of his to ban everyone in his country not to use a social media platform because the platform rightfully deleted his 'genocidal tweet' (which the presidency has refuted is not the reason for banning the app) threatening some people in the country shows absolute dictatorship and infringement of the human rights which the people are supposed to have. The reason the Minister of Information gave as to why they have to ban the platform is that during the End Sars protest in the country, the platform was used to mobilize many into action against the government. So, my concern now is, can't people speak out their mind anymore when they feel not treated well by their government? That was what Nigerians basically did but those under Buhari's administration saw it that the platform gave the people more power than the government. Anyway, that's not what I really want to focus on. My main concern is to expose the real reason why the platform was banned and then the way forward for Nigerians since the government have grabbed everyone by the throat.
The whole agenda is actually to promote a new social media multipurpose app developed in Nigeria known as 'Crowwe'. Yes, birds tweets but there is a particular small blackbird called a Crow - just say a Raven (and don't stress your head too much trying to know what a crow is). The app looks more like a combination of Instagram and twitter. It is quite interesting to know that the app has been heavily promoted by the famously infamous Adamu Garba, a one time presidential candidate and CEO of the company responsible for the creation of the app (IPIGroupNG). Since the announcement of the ban, he has been tweeting persistently, clamouring for millions of Nigerians on twitter to switch allegiance to Crowwe.
While few Nigerians have speedily joined his gullibility train, many have started the odyssey of a way forward, and the first step is to wreck the new app completely. So, here is what they have done thus far (and still doing). Few hours after the ban was announced before it took effect, a guy tweeted (image below) "...just go to playstore, download the app, install, go to playstore & give it 1-star rating. Go to the top right, click & flag it as inappropriate." You may be wondering how will it wreck the app. The thing is, once it's flagged inappropriate by the majority, playstore will pull it down and consider it not good for their platform. Trust Nigerians, they started retweeting the guy's tweet and many did as he directed. Within 2hrs, the rating of the Crowwe app dropped from 2.7star to 1.2star as many gave it a 1star rating and poor review. Damn!
Garba Adamu was busy creating more awareness for the app, only for it to be destroyed by Nigerians. He was invited to Channels TV yesterday and he was angrily speaking about why twitter should be banned and justifying the actions of the Federal government. That is a step only an Ignoramus would take! You are shooting yourself in the kneecap. Even if the desire is to promote a new app, there are other ways to go about it, not by blocking Twitter that has been in existence for a long time and restricting the rights of the citizens to express themselves on the social media platform.
Anyway, many woke up on the 5th of June and realized that Twitter is currently not working in the country anymore but just as water would always find its way through anything, many Nigerians have resolved in using VPN from different countries to keep enjoying their social media contents. But now, there is a big issue that need to be addressed. The federal government have issued a statement again that whosoever is found still using Twitter in the country will be arrested and prosecuted. Guess what! the governor of Oyo state, Seyi Makinde has persistently used his twitter handle to tweet about the developments in his state and even issued a personal statement expressing that he is not in support of the ban issued by the FG.
In fact, the president's spokesman Bashir Ahmad and NCDC have used twitter since after the ban kicked off (which suggests they are possibly using VPN too). Now, the issue is, will they be arrested and prosecuted for doing so? when Nigerian Attorney General, Dr. Gwandu was asked, he simply said that it would have have to be established beyond reasonable doubt that they had tweeted after the ban. What this could mean is that the FG can come out and say these persons' accounts were hacked and they weren't the ones that tweeted, hence we can't and won't prosecute them. They want to take us for a fool. Bunch of Jokers!
It is obvious that many political leaders are not even in support of this twitter ban and as such it has created division among top politicians in the society under President Buhari led administration. While it is now obvious that Nigerians within the country do not have rights and freedom of expression anymore, which has led many top personalities from other countries to speak out about this recent dictatorial approach by the government, it would be wise for the FG to reverse their decision as soon as possible before they face the wrath of International Organizations which Nigeria as a nation belong to. Following the disapproval of their action by the United States of America, the Presidential spokesman has since released a statement from the office of the President with the notion that the ban is just temporal and not a permanent one. They are gradually feeling the heat from the International bodies and know they are playing with fire due to their unreasonable action. They have already shot themselves in the leg by their action of banning twitter and they had better fix things rightly in earnest lest they bleed out. We shall see who will have the last laugh.
Statement from the US Mission in Nigeria has forced Presidency to respond
Good job
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