Anthony Iwuoma
Festus Keyamo SAN, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, has attributed the delay in the Federal Government lifting the ban on microblogging platform, Twitter, to timelines.
The minister, who appeared on an interview programme on Channels Television, Politics Today, on Sunday, said Twitter had met almost all the conditions it was given, except the timelines.
The Federal Government, on June 4, this year, suspended Twitter operations in Nigeria, following President Muhammadu Buhari’s controversial tweet, which the microblogging site deleted.
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This did not go down well with the Federal Government and it accused the social media giant of working in cahoots with Nigeria’s enemies.
Keyamo, one of the ministers that engaged Twitter in a conversation, explained: “It was Twitter, just to put it in context, that reached out to the federal government to say they want to know what they can do to straighten up the relationship with the federal government. And so we’ve gone far. I may not at this forum, let out a lot, but we give them a lot of conditions (and) they have agreed to all those conditions. What is left now are the timelines to fulfill those conditions,” he said.
“Once those timelines come and they fulfill those conditions, Twitter will be back to business in Nigeria. They know exactly what we want. And these are things that are extremely altruistic.”
According to the minister, part of the agreement reached with Twitter so far is that it will pay taxes to the Nigerian government and also open a physical office in Nigeria.
“So, they’ve agreed to taxation, they’ve agreed to open an office in Nigeria so that there can be some, you know, face to face complaints so that we don’t have to be going through algorithms to complain about activities of certain persons who use Twitter to subvert the government of the day.
“There are certain lines that people should not cross when sending out messages, or tweeting things that are capable of tearing us apart. For instance, things are not capable of setting this country on fire, you know, but to use those platforms to promote and propagate some of these ideas,” Keyamo said.
Initially, Twitter had provoked Nigerian officials when it disclosed decision to site its regional headquarters in Ghana instead of Nigeria where it has more patronage, citing “free speech, online freedom, and open internet” among its reasons.
Keyamo also disclosed that as a prelude to lifting the suspension, a technical committee set up to interface with Twitter is fashioning out a code of conduct to control the mode of engagement of not only Twitter but other social media platforms as well.
