Twitter ban, Tinubu’s tweeps, and N500bn Tantrum
After 5,328 hours, amounting to 222 days, the Nigerian government lifted the ban on Twitter operations in the country earlier in the week. According to the NetBlocks Cost of Shutdown Tool, Nigeria lost N104.02 million ($250,600) every hour to the ban, bringing the daily losses to N2.46 billion.
A statement by the Chairman Technical Committee of the Nigeria-Twitter Engagement and Director-General National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, said President Muhammadu Buhari approved the lifting of the ban effective from 12:00 a.m. Thursday morning.
The government had suspended Twitter operations indefinitely on June 4, after it alleged that the micro-blogging site was being used to undermine “Nigeria’s corporate existence” through the spreading of fake news with potential for “violent consequences”.
Soon after the suspension, the government directed broadcasting stations to suspend “patronage” of the platform, describing its further use by the broadcast stations as “unpatriotic.”
The government was, however, largely perceived as interested in clamping down on voices of dissent, constricting the social media rather than cultivating its growth potentials, with ripple effects on the investment climate of the country.
At the height of the ban, however, many Nigerians ignored the government’s directive and bypassed it by using Virtual Private Network (VPN) applications to remain active on the social media site. The government’s move was equally condemned by many Nigerians, civic groups and the international community.
Triumph or Concession?
On Thursday night, the government said Twitter has committed to establishing a legal entity in Nigeria during the first quarter of 2022.
The legal entity, it said, will register with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
Similarly, it said the social media platform has agreed to appoint a designated country representative to interface with Nigerian authorities.
Other resolutions include Twitter reportedly agreeing to comply with applicable tax obligations on its operations under Nigerian law.
The federal government said the company also agreed to give its officials the ability to take down tweets it considers a threat to the country’s security.
There have been claims that the Nigerian government’s exhibition of triumphalism is exaggerated, and that Twitter might not have agreed with such demands.
The American firm has however kept mum over the claims. It merely said in its post that, “We are deeply committed to Nigeria, where Twitter is used by people for commerce, cultural engagement, and civic participation.”
In any case, Nigerians are waiting with bated breath to have clarity on these issues in the coming days.
Return of the Tweeps
With the lifting of the ban Thursday, numerous individuals and organizations that left the platform at the height of the ban returned to a chaotic welcome. Media organizations, non-governmental groups, and Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) also returned using funny memes amid caustic engagement from trolls. But easily noticeable among returnees to the platform are tweeps loyal to the presidential cause of a leading chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who is equally aspiring to lead Nigeria in 2023, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Earlier in the week, Tinubu had declared interest in the nation’s top seat in the next dispensation, saying he would consolidate on Buhari’s legacies.
With records of an inflation rate that jumped from 9% to about 15%; unemployment rate that moved from 9.2% to 33%; and exchange (rate) that moved from N197/$1 to over N400/$1—all between 2015 and 2022, Nigerians are wary of a man determined to build on these “legacies”. On Twitter, they have been asking questions with no coherent answers, up until Thursday. With Buhari’s lifting of Twitter ban and return of Tinubu’s tweeps to the platform, things are set to become dramatic. And as tweeps would say, there will surely be “vayolence”!
N500bn Tantrum?
According to Guardian newspaper, the Twitter ban came with economic losses of about N546.5 billion, with the daily loss put at N2.46 billion—per data from NetBlocks Cost of Shutdown Tool. Hootsuite, a social media and marketing dashboard, noted in its 2021 digital report that Twitter’s potential advertising audience compared to the total population aged 13 in Nigeria is 2.4 per cent, while the quarter-on-quarter change in Twitter’s advertising reach is 17.3 per cent. Many have argued that the ban had no basis ab initio, prompting civil organizations like the Social Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) to file a suit challenging the legality of the ban. Although the government claimed that the microblogging site operated in ways that could undermine “Nigeria’s corporate existence”, many have argued that the ban was necessitated by how the platform treated one of Buhari’s tweets, which it found offensive.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court was expected to deliver a judgement on the case filed by SERAP next week. Stakeholders believe that the mere fact that the ban was lifted just a few days before that important judgement would be delivered speaks to the awkwardness of the ban ab initio. In a sense, the ban was tantamount to a presidential tantrum. Only that in this case it’s quite an expensive tantrum, costing the nation and its impoverished army of struggling entrepreneurs a whopping N546.5 billion.