Mr. Festus Keyamo, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, has disclosed that Twitter, the social media company that the Federal Government banned in June 2021, has accepted to the government’s terms.
The Minister stated in an interview with Channels Television on Sunday that the Federal Government-appointed committee to review the microblogging platform’s activities had made substantial progress.
The Federal Government suspended the platform, according to Keyamo, who is also a member of the committee, in order to re-calibrate the relationship between the two parties.
“The reason the president took that step is to recalibrate our relationship with Twitter and not to drive them away from our country.
“That recalibration, we have started it and the President graciously added me to the committee.
“We also set up a technical committee to interface with Twitter and come up with a lot of conditions for them to fulfill for us to lift the suspension.
“It was Twitter that reached out to the Federal Government to say they want to know what and what they can do to straighten up the relationship with the Federal Government and so, we have gone far but I may not, at this forum, let out a lot but we gave them a lot of conditions and they have agreed to all the conditions,” he stated.
WITHIN NIGERIA reports that the operations of the platform were suspended in June 5, 2021, for allegedly allowing some content capable of threatening the corporate existence of the country.
It was alleged that the self-acclaimed leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was using the platform to incite violence in the country prior to his rearrest.
The suspension also came a few days after the social media platform deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s controversial post against the people of the Southeastern region.