Twitter ban

Editorial

WITH her unbroken run of elected, representative governments since 1999, Nigeria has steadily nurtured and consolidated her ranking among the respectable democracies of the world. This respectable image in the comity of nations has, for instance, helped to increase the inflow of Foreign Direct Investment into the country, which is indispensable to sustainable economic recovery and growth. It has also played a key role in the financial and logistical support that Nigeria has received from several developed countries in her battle against the myriad of security challenges threatening her stability and cohesion.

This is why the ban on the micro-blogging platform, Twitter, by the Federal Government on June 5, is unfortunate. The ban stifles Nigerians’ access to Twitter, and puts the country in the league of polities such as North Korea, China, Myanmar, Turkmenistan and Iran. This is certainly not an enviable company to be in, given the high value attached to free speech and access to information as well as media of communication as a human right in today’s world.

Pursuant to the Twitter ban, the regulatory agency, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), has directed all broadcast stations to suspend Twitter patronage, a directive that has largely been complied with, even if widely criticised.

True, the Federal Government has levelled very serious allegations against Twitter as justification for its action. Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, accused Twitter of threatening the corporate existence of the country by allowing the persistent use of its platform by “a particular separatist leader who resides outside the country and issues directives to its members to attack symbols of government authority such as the police, the military, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) offices, correctional centres, etc. And this is being done willfully and consistently without any consequences from Twitter”. He also alleged that “… the Twitter owner is one of those who helped to fund the #EndSARS protests that was later hijacked leading to loss of lives and massive destruction of property”.

It is, however, instructive that it was only after Twitter deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari, which made reference to Nigeria’s civil war (1967-1970) in a way widely perceived as threatening a section of the country, that the government announced the indefinite suspension of the platform. This created the unfortunate impression that the action was motivated more by the hurt ego of an individual than the  collective interest of the country. This should not be the case in a country that is a democracy and not a monarchy. In any case, did the Federal Government take advantage of Twitter’s own rules to deter the platform’s activities that threatened the country’s corporate existence? We are not aware that this was done.

According to Wikipedia, “Twitter acts on complaints by third parties, including governments, to remove illegal content in accordance with the laws of the countries in which people use the service”. The online encyclopedia cites the example of India where, on August 3, 2019, a Kashmiri separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, tweeted “India is about to launch the biggest genocide in the history of mankind”, after which “his account was suspended on request by authorities”. It states further that “In February, 2021, Twitter had blocked several accounts Tweeted in support of the 2020-2021 Indian farmers protest upon the request by the Ministry of Home Affairs”.

Similarly, it reports that “In 2016, access to comments by the American blogger, Richard Silverstein, about a criminal investigation, which involved a minor and therefore was under a gag order according to Israeli law, was blocked to Israeli IP addresses, following a request by Israel’s Ministry of Justice”. Did the requisite authorities here make similar requests to Twitter, which the latter ignored, thus justifying its suspension? There is no indication  to that effect.

Beyond this, it does not appear that the Federal Government took due cognizance of the dire economic implications for the country of its clampdown on Twitter. As has been pointed out severally, a substantial number of small scale businesses rely on Twitter for their operations. Many of them will either have to find a way of circumventing the ban or shut down. Furthermore, large numbers of young people utilise the various opportunities offered by the platform to engage themselves productively and earn a living. Has the government contemplated the dangers of throwing these people into the already excessively bloated unemployment market? Even a number of the measures introduced by government itself to improve the country’s ease of doing business index will be negatively affected by this ban, which is why various stakeholders in the business sector have advocated its immediate lifting.

Denying claims in some quarters that the ban is not effective, Mr  Mohammed asserted that Twitter is losing money due to the action. Even if this is true, those affected in the organisation will be Twitter’s shareholders and some of its staff. The economic implications for Nigeria, on the other hand, negatively affect millions of citizens and their livelihood, a completely avoidable situation. According to the minister, “…it is because we have a country that we can start talking about free speech. And, of course, there has to be a country before people can be able to transact their businesses using social media platforms”. But then, the scuttling of individual liberties, including free speech and access to mediums of communication breeds unaccountable and despotic governance , which is the greatest threat to the peace, stability and cohesion of any country.

Government is obviously concerned that global powers such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union and Ireland have jointly condemned its action and called for the urgent lifting of the suspension. This certainly motivated the meeting of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, with the envoys of these countries in Nigeria, to explain the rationale for the decision. Even as every state must protect its sovereignty, no country is an island in today’s world and Nigeria cannot afford to alienate critical segments of the international community, especially given current serious existential challenges confronting the country.

The country’s image as a polity governed by laws is not helped by the directive of the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami, that violators of the suspension be prosecuted even when there is no law banning the use of Twitter in the country. Foreign investors cannot be attracted to a country where the arbitrary assertion of a public official, no matter how highly placed, is elevated to the status of law. The fact that large numbers of Nigerians continue to access and use Twitter through Virtual Private Networks (VPN),  thus clearly circumventing the ban demonstrates the utter absurdity of government giving orders that it lacks the capacity to effectively enforce.

Mr Mohammed said that Twitter has approached government for high level talks to resolve the issues involved. In fact, that the platform has pulled down an incendiary tweet by the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mr Nnamdi Kanu, suggests that it is now more sensitive to its own perceived shortcomings. The conditions given by government for the lifting of the ban, such as Twitter’s registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), obtaining an operating license from the NBC, as well as payment of taxes to the Nigerian government as a business, raise critical legal issues as regards the operation of a global outfit within the boundaries of a sovereign state. However, Twitter, should fulfill these conditions, as a business concern. Even then, the point must be made that these are extraneous to the issue at hand and a complete distraction because they were not the reasons why Twitter’s operation was suspended in the first place.

The government’s action would seem more of a reprisal for Twitter’s announcement in April of its decision to establish its African office in Ghana. Many people, including the Nigerian government, had thought Nigeria would be a natural choice for such an office, given the huge number of Nigerians taking advantage of the Twitter platform.

All said, both parties must have learnt one lesson or the other from the ban. We therefore urge them to conclude their dialogue soon in their mutual  interest. While Twitter has to be more sensitive to the sensibilities of the various countries covered by its operations, it is important for governments too to implement all-inclusive policies and programmes rather than seemingly promoting sectional interests. Pent-up anger will always burst loose no matter the efforts made to conceal it, especially in this day and age that technology rules the world. We can only have genuine peace in an environment where justice thrives. Anything to the contrary is peace of the graveyard.