Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has berated President Muhammadu Buhari over his government’s decision to suspend Twitter indefinitely in Nigeria.
Africa Today News, New York had reported that Federal Government had on Friday suspended Twitter indefinitely in Nigeria.
‘The Minister said the Federal Government has also directed the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to immediately commence the process of licensing all OTT and social media operations in Nigeria‘, added Segun Adeyemi, the Special Assistant To The President (Media).
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Twitter had recently gone into the bad books of the Buhari government after its police deleted two tweets and a video, in which President Buhari threatened to invoke civil war treatment to arsonists, separatists, and insurrectionists destroying public assets.
The President tweeted: ‘Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War.
‘Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand,’ the president said.
However, while reacting to the ban, Soyinka said he just heard the news of Buhari’s ban on Twitter an hour or so after sending off TO SHOCK AND AWE to the print media.
He said he said he lacked surprise at this petulant gesture, unbecoming of a democratically elected president.
According to Soyinka, ‘if Buhari has a problem with Twitter, he is advised to sort it out between them personally, the way Donald Trump did, not rope in the right to free expression of the Nigerian citizen as collateral damage.
‘In any case, this is a technical problem Nigerians should be able to work their way around. The field of free expression remains wide open, free of any dictatorial spasms!’ he declareed.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK