This decision will delight several million Nigerians. The government of their country announced, Wednesday, January 12, the lifting of the suspension on Twitter for seven months in this most populous country in Africa.
“President Muhammadu Buhari approved the lifting of the Twitter suspension in Nigeria from midnight today”, announced the director of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, quoted in a statement.
Nigerian authorities claim that after several months of negotiations Twitter gained access to “All conditions set by the federal government”, especially in terms of taxation and management of content that does not comply with the laws of Nigeria. Contacted by Agence France-Presse, Twitter had not yet confirmed this announcement or reacted on Wednesday evening.
Threats of the president against the Biafran separatists
Abuja announced in early June 2021 the suspension of Twitter for ” an indefinite period “ after having accused the social network in particular of having a “Suspicious mission” against the Nigerian government, and to tolerate messages on its platform from the leader of a separatist group inciting violence in south-eastern Nigeria.
The Twitter suspension came two days after the social network deleted a message from President Muhammadu Buhari. The head of state threatened to “Deal with a language they understand” those responsible for the violence in south-eastern Nigeria – attributed by the authorities to Igbo separatists – thus reviving the terrible memories of the Biafran war which killed more than a million people in the late 1960s.
The suspension of Twitter, then the government order to the audiovisual media to delete their account in a gesture “Patriotic”, had aroused deep consternation in Nigeria, a young country, very connected, where this social network is an important tool of social protest. The European Union, Great Britain, the United States and Canada then deplored the suspension of Twitter.
In recent years, the platform has played an important role in the public debate, with hashtags that have gotten a lot of attention, like #bringbackourgirls (‘bring back our girls’), which went viral when 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped by the jihadist group Boko Haram in 2014, or #endSARS, which in 2020 gave its name to the vast movement against police brutality and against power.
After the suspension of Twitter, Nigerian Internet users had downloaded very large numbers of VPN configuration software (virtual private networks), which allowed them to access Twitter, and the search “VPN App” had become the second most great web research in the country, despite the threats of power against any violator.