Governor of Lagos state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has reacted to the suspension of Twitter operations in Nigerian by the Federal Government.
The Federal Government on Friday suspended the operations of the microblogging and social networking service in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, announced the suspension in a statement signed by his media aide, Segun Adeyemi.
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The minister cited the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.
He also directed the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to immediately commence the process of licensing all OTT and social media operations in Nigeria.
This development is coming after Twitter had on Wednesday deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet for violating its rules.
Reacting to the suspension in an interview on Arise TV on Monday, Sanwo-Olu said the federal government could have handle the situation very well.
He added that dialoguing with Twitter would have been better than an outright ban because of the economic implications of the suspension.
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He said: “People are losing money but there are also security issues. Let us be circumspect and not throw the baby away with the bathwater.”
“Regarding the specifics around Twitter, I cannot sit down here with all of the responsibilities that I have and fly (sic) the commander in chief of the armed forces. He would have the prognosis and security information that I do not have. I cannot begin to say that was he’s done is right or wrong.
“What I see is that on both sides, there are issues that can be resolved between Twitter and the (Federal) Government and I think what they’ve done is not a ban but a suspension. So, in the period of suspension, let us sit down…we need to have that conversation with them (Twitter).
“In other climes, they sign some underlying agreements on the rules of engagement. I am not sure that is happening here. Having said that, the Federal Government can also handle things a lot better because of the number of e-commerce, because of the number of youths that are doing a lot of things on the internet and we cannot throw that away.
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“I believe there could be better restrain and management from both sides. In the next one or two days, let us see that happen. Lagos is hurting, our youths are hurting, Nigeria is hurting, let us understand the issues and put it behind us so that we don’t politicise it.”
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