South Asia and Beyond

Nigeria Bans Twitter After President’s Tweet Deleted

Nigeria says it has “indefinitely suspended” the operations of Twitter in the country “for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”. Ironically, the government statement was put up on the official Twitter handle of the Ministry of Information and Culture.

The action came two days after Twitter deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari who had threatened to deal with people in the nation’s southeast, whom he blames for frequent attacks on public property.

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“Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War. Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand,” Buhari tweeted earlier this week. The reference was to a war that killed over a million people in eastern Nigeria between 1967 and 1970.

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