The president of the federal republic of Nigeria has indefinitely suspended the operations of Twitter, the government said on Friday, following the suspension of the account of the president for a tweet warning of a return to violence in a civil war that cost millions of lives in the 1960s.
According to the ministry of Information Lai Mohammed he said “the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.” In his statement, he didn’t explain that reference, nor was it immediately clear what the minister meant by a suspension of operations or how the government would enforce it.
Twitter said the Nigerian government’s statement was deeply concerning. “We’re investigating and will provide updates when we know more,” the company said.
On Wednesday, Twitter removed a tweet from President Muhammadu Buhari, a former general and military junta leader, that appeared to threaten violent reprisals for separatists from the Independent Peoples’ Republic of Biafra in the nation’s southeast that the government has blamed for attacks on property and assassinations.
The tweet, since deleted, said the culprits were too young to understand what happened during the civil war but issued a warning that: “Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.” After thousands of Twitter users reported the post, the microblogging site deleted it, with a comment: “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules.”
The news comes as governments across Africa and much of the world are cutting people off from the global web with growing frequency and little scrutiny. Parts or all of the internet were shut down at least 213 times in 33 countries last year, the most ever recorded, according to Access Now, a nonprofit that advocates for a free internet and has monitored the practice for a decade. The shutdowns were used to stop protests, censor speeches, control elections and silence people, human-rights advocates said.
Twitter is a potent political force in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, where a poorly-funded and partisan media is little trusted by the estimated 200 million population. Mr. Buhari, who joined the platform while campaigning for president eight years ago, has 4.1 million followers and regularly posts long threads to announce and explain government policy.
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