By Fredrick Wright
The Federal Government has disclosed plans to lift the ban on use of Twitter in the country soon, after extensive meetings between the Nigerian Government representatives and American microblogging site,
The Minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, who revealed the government plans on Wednesday after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting chaired by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, assured Nigerians that after both parties reach an agreement on the areas left, the ban on Twitter would be lifted.
He said that what had continued to hold back the platform operation across Nigeria was that both parties were yet to reach agreements on several areas except three which would be concluded in a few days.
Mohammed explained that the three areas still under contention include the need for Twitter to establish a legal presence in Nigeria, registered as a Nigerian company with an office address, and an employee to serve as a country representative in any part of Nigeria.
As gathered, during the meeting, the US technology firm argued that the earliest it could set up an office in any part of the country would be next year, 2022.
The Federal Government banned Twitter’s operations barely two months ago after the social media platform deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari after tweeting on the Civil war that occurred over five decades ago.
Twitter, after pulling down the comment of the president, claimed that the content posted on President Muhammadu Buhari’s official handle was at variance with its rules.
The federal government explained at the time that the suspension had no correlation with the deletion of the President’s tweets.
