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  The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, confirmed this when he featured on “Politics Nationwide,’’ a Radio Nigeria call-in programme in Abuja. “ I can confirm that Twitter has written the Federal Government that they are ready to talk. “as we have always maintained, the door is not locked and we are open minded but Twitter must work toward it, ” he said. The minister reiterated the government’s position that it would not tolerate any platform that would be used to destabilise the country. Mohammed said among other conditions for Twitter to resume operation in Nigeria, there must be an agreement as to what contents it could post. He said Twitter and other platforms must also register as a Nigerian company, obtain license from the National Broadcasting Commission(NBC) and be guided by the rules of the licensing as well as pay taxes. According to the minister, regulation of social media platforms is becoming a global practice. He said most countries were just w...

  A Nigerian minister and a governor of a northern state recently visited Egypt to get security platforms to monitor people's calls, text messages and other forms of communication. According to a security source, the minister and governor made a quick trip to the North African in a bid to find technological ways to trample on people's freedom of speech.  The governor and the minister are both controversial and have also been in the news lately for the wrong reasons.  " A minister and a governor went to Egypt this week to get a security platform for monitoring calls of citizens. It was a really quick trip ," the source said. The clampdown on free speech in Nigeria has become heightened under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration. Towards the end of 2015, a Petition Bill targeting online and print media as well as regulating social media posts was sponsored in the Senate but it was followed by a public backlash.  In 2019, lawmakers introduced the National Commi...

   The United States government has asked the Nigerian Government to immediately reverse its ban on Twitter adding that it was tantamount to opposing free speech. Samantha Power, an administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, made this known in a statement on Wednesday. She revealed that Twitter has over 40 million users in Nigeria, noting that the directive must be reversed immediately. She said, “ There are nearly 40 million Twitter users in #Nigeria, and the country is home to Africa's largest tech hub. This suspension is nothing more than state-sanctioned denial of free speech and should be reversed immediately .” The US Mission in Nigeria had also issued an earlier statement via its Facebook page pointing out that the ban was an encroachment to the people’s right to freedom. She said, “ Nigeria’s constitution provides for freedom of expression. The Government’s recent #Twitterban undermines Nigerians’ ability to exercise this fundamental freed...