All the actions that made Buhari ban Twitter in Nigeria

On Friday, June 4, the Ministry of information and culture issued a statement announcing the indefinite ban on Twitter in Nigeria. The minister, Lai Mohammed, cited ‘the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.”

The timing of the ban however suggests otherwise. Three days before, Twitter had deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s Tweet that referenced the Nigerian Civil War and suspended the account for 12 hours. Facebook also took down the same statement in its entirety but the federal government did not or has not announced any ban on the use of Facebook in Nigeria. To add to this, a post titled, PRESIDENTIAL STATEMENT ON TWITTER SUSPENSION IN NIGERIA, was published on Buhari’s Facebook page which means the social media platform would not be banned.

So why Twitter? Neusroom provides a timeline of Twitter’s ‘offence’ that led to its ban in Nigeria.

1. EndSars

In late 2020, there was a massive protest in Nigeria largely organised by the youths. It started off as a complaint against the activities of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, a unit of the police which was notorious for alleged extortion and brutalisation of young people. The complaint began on Twitter and spread into the streets of major cities like Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja. It was the first large scale protest in Nigeria since the January 2012 Occupy Nigeria protest. Through the use of Twitter, Nigerian youths were able to raise funds, disseminate information, coordinate protests at different locations and record the things that were happening in real time. The youths also massively used Twitter to draw the attention of the world to the protest. This generated massive reactions from the international community and celebrities like Cardi B, Rihanna, Kanye West, Diddy and a host of other celebrities.

There was also an allegation of extra-judicial killing of unarmed protesters at Lekki by soldiers with evidence reportedly provided from pictures and videos posted on Twitter. This led to the International Criminal Court announcing that it was opening an investigation against Nigeria based on the fact that there “was a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed.”

2. Jack’s Support for EndSars Protest

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, was one of the first people to express support for the End Sars protest when he tweeted about it. On three different occasions, he lent his voice to the protest . In one of them, he replied to Oby Ezekwesili’s tweet about the issue where she said the government was killing its citizens on the street.

3. EndSars Branded Emoji

A few days into the EndSars protest, Twitter gave the hashtag its own branded emoji which signalled a sort of brand support for the protest. The Emoji is of a raised fist painted in the Green and White pattern of the Nigerian flag.

Branded Emojis have stopping powers and help to sustain interest on a topic or brand.

According to Twitter “the amount of attention ads receive increases by almost 10% when branded emojis are included in the ad.

“Further, campaigns with branded emojis extend a brand’s presence across Twitter in a way that is personal and authentic to the brand. In fact, the median number of earned media generated is 5.3 million Tweet impressions, representing a 420% increase compared to the earned media baseline.”

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4. Verifying leading EndSars voices

Twitter helped to amplify the voices of those leading the EndSars protest by verifying their accounts. This helped to lend credibility to these persons and groups as leaders of the protest and increased the reach of their Tweets. Some of the accounts that were verified during the EndSars protest were Aisha Yesufu, Debo Macaroni, Dami Elebe, Rinu, Feminist Coalition. A Google search of some of those names showed that they are tagged as EndSars verified accounts.

5. Donation to EndSars

Beyond supporting the EndSars protest and helping to spread its awareness, Jack went a step further by encouraging his millions of followers to donate to the protest. He provided a link to the Feminist Coalition page encouraging people to donate via Bitcoin. This form of cryptocurrency payment which uses peer-to-peer payment is impossible for the government to track or freeze. There is speculation that one of the reasons for the ban on cryptocurrency in Nigeria by the CBN is due to its usage during the EndSars protest. Despite this, some Nigerians still circumvent the ban to still continue to use the service.

6. Twitter in Ghana

In April, Twitter opened its first Africa office in Ghana. Many had expected Nigeria to get the slot.. The choice of Ghana was explained by Twitter in a blogpost in what many saw as a subtle indictment on Nigeria. It said that it selected Ghana because  “as a champion for democracy, Ghana is a supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet, of which Twitter is also an advocate.”

7. Deletion of Buhari’s Tweet

The last straw was the deletion of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet where he warned that his administration would deal with those responsible for insecurity in the language that they understand while also making reference to the Nigerian Civil War. This led to the government announcing the indefinite ban on Twitter in Nigeria. The Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation also sent a memo to all broadcasting stations to uninstall their Twitter apps and desist from using it as a source of information.