The federal government has approved the lifting of the suspension placed on the operations of the micro-blogging site, Twitter in Nigeria
This was disclosed by the National Information Technology(NITDA) in a statement issued on Tuesday, adding that the lifting will be effective from midnight Janaury 13 2022.
The statement signed by Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, director-general, NITDA, said that the approval followed a memo written to the president by Isa Ali Ibrahim, minister of communications and digital economy.
In June 2021, the federal government announced the indefinite suspension of the micro-blogging site after the platform deleted tweets made by President Muhammadu Buhari, who had threatened to treat members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in the “language they understand”.
On Tuesday, the government said it had reached an amicable resolution with Twitter on various terms and conditions given to the micro-blogging platform
Twitter has agreed to appoint a designated country representative to interface with Nigerian authorities. The Global Public Policy team is also directly available through a dedicated communication channel.
“Twitter has agreed to comply with applicable tax obligations on its operations under Nigerian law.
“Twitter has agreed to enrol Nigeria in its Partner Support and Law Enforcement Portals. The Partner Support Portal provides a direct channel for government officials and Twitter staff to manage prohibited content that violates Twitter community rules. At the same time, the Law Enforcement Portal provides a channel for the law enforcement agencies to submit a report with a legal justification where it suspects that content violates Nigerian Laws. Taken together, these represent a comprehensive compliance apparatus.”
The statement further stated that the micro-blogging site has “agreed to act with a respectful acknowledgement of Nigerian laws and the national culture and history on which such legislation has been built and work with the FGN and the broader industry to develop a Code of Conduct in line with global best practices, applicable in almost all developed countries”.
