Nigeria’s NBC drafts new rules for banned Twitter, orders broadcasters to deactivate accounts with network

*As patriots speak

By BASHIR ADEFAKA

Nigeria’s broadcast regulator began drafting new rules that will require Twitter Inc. to have a license to operate, after the government banned the platform in the West African nation, the country’s government said.

The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) ordered all broadcasters to suspend “patronage of Twitter immediately” and stop using the social media company as a “source of information gathering for news and programs,” according to a statement published on Facebook on Monday.

“It will be unpatriotic for any broadcaster in Nigeria to continue to patronize the suspended Twitter as a source of its information, therefore strict compliance is enjoined,” the NBC said.

The media regulator’s Twitter handle was still active, with almost 25,000 followers, at 14:00 on Monday, it however did not not use or access and even with blocking of the social media networking platform by telecommunications companies in compliance with the ban, access to it has automatically been disabled.

The order from the NBC follows the government’s banning of Twitter on Friday 4 June, 2021 after the San Francisco-based company deleted a tweet in which President Muhammadu Buhari threatened to crack down on rebellion of terrorist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), whose destructive and inciting tweets undermining the country it continues to allow to run undeleted. By this doing, Twitter is generally believed to have aided the killings of security officers and destructions of public infrastructures so caused.

Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, directed the commission to order all social media companies and so-called over-the-top media services to apply for permits.

“The commission is currently in the process of carrying out the directive,” Segun Adeyemi, Mohammed’s special assistant on media, said in an emailed response to questions.

Nigeria’s government said Saturday and maintained Monday that its ban on Twitter is indefinitely, although the presidency described it as “temporary” and the result of broader grievances than solely the company’s deletion of Buhari’s tweet.

Mohammed had earlier characterized the suspension as indefinite, in response to what he called “the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.”

Envoys from the U.S, the U.K, Canada and the European Union were summoned by Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday over an earlier statement they issued cautioning the government on its action against Twitter.

At the meeting with the envoys, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama, said the handle must be used responsibly.

Onyeama insisted that “we want to use social media for good'” but that the government would not sit back and watch social media destabilize the country.

Nigeria’s Foundation for Investigative Journalism reported Sunday that the presidency contacted and met the Cyberspace Administration of China to discuss the possibility of setting up an Internet firewall similar to that found in China. Adeyemi denied the report, describing the story as “absolutely fake.”

“It’s a figment of the reporter’s imagination,” he said in the statement.

Twitter’s app is popular with young Nigerians, 64% of whom are under 25 years old, according to the United Nations. It ranks as the sixth-most used social-media platform in the country. Twitter said it’s concerned about the ban and will work to restore access.

Like a section of Nigerian professionals do not see the evil that Twitter did against their country of living, there is good number of citizens who will go any lent to condemn the act.

They are saying that Twitter cannot decide how Nigeria runs its affairs and so must tall in line and operate according to the rules of the country or leave.

Responding to the denied report of Foundation for Investigative Journalism in Nigeria, one of them, who spoke annonimously, said:

“What if Nigeria is discussing with Cyberspace Administration of China to discuss the possibility of setting up an Internet firewall similar to that found in China? What about that? America failed us as a development partner. All they could achieve with us was use their dollars to instigate our own against us in the name of Civil Society funded with foreign aids to counter every move we make to agree, unite and develop. But with China we are good and ate developing. Now at all cost, they must use Twitter to achieve in grandstyle what they couldn’t achieve physically. Don’t those Nigerians get it?

“Adeyemi did not need to deny anything. If that meeting on building Nigeria own internet firewall has not taken place with China, FG should let it hold immediately. Areas you know your enemies will hold you into ransom, you must block it by making yourself independent of them. Nigeria must start building its own. ICT database system and domesticate all technologies for self development of itself. That is when Nigeria frees itself from the imperialists who would stop at nothing to block our chances 9f development as a country,” he said.

The DEFENDER reports that indications abound what has happened now to Twitter may not only be an end to irresponsible exercisation freedom of expression but that, the network may not be the same again as more countries have also banned it for working to destroy them despite being sovereign nations. India has told Twitter it would only be allowed to operate on its teritory once it agrees t

The letter from NBC to deactivate Twitter as follows: