The Peoples Democratic Party has criticised the All Progressive Congress administration led by President Muhammadu Bahari over the set up of Twitter headquarters in Ghana despite more traffic in Nigeria.
The owner of Twitter, Jack has announced its plan to build its first West African headquarters in Ghana over the ease of business and freedom of speech.
“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. Furthermore, Ghana’s recent appointment to host The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area aligns with our overarching goal to establish a presence in the region that will support our efforts to improve and tailor our service across Africa. ”
A press release of the PDP on Wednesday disclosed that Twitter’s ‘preference for Ghana over Nigeria was occasioned by inconsistent economic policies, obnoxious suppression of free speech, stifling of online freedom and open internet by the Buhari administration and the APC.’
Read the full press release below;
The Peoples Democratic Party laments that the unabating misrule of the Muhammadu Buhari Presidency and the All Progressive Congress pushed @Twitter to take its African Headquarters to Ghana instead of Nigeria, even though Nigeria has far more twitter traffic and more business prospects than Ghana.
The PDP says Twitter’s preference for Ghana over Nigeria was occasioned by inconsistent economic policies, obnoxious suppression of free speech, stifling of online freedom and open internet by the Buhari administration and the APC.
This is in addition to infrastructural decay, massive corruption and manifest failure of the Buhari Presidency and the APC to address the escalated insecurity brought upon our nation by their incompetent watch.
Indeed the decision by Twitter to bypass Nigeria to locate its African operational base in Ghana is another sad commentary of how our nation, which was hitherto a global investment hub under the PDP, has now been so degraded in global economic competitiveness under the APC.
Nigerians heavily despaired on Monday when the founder of Twitter, Jack, announced that his company will be setting up its headquarters on the continent in Ghana despite Nigeria’s domineering Twitter traffic in the sub-region.
With an estimated 39.6 million Twitter subscribers in Nigeria, which is bigger than the population of Ghana, Nigeria ought to be the destination, but for the anti-people policies of the APC administration.
It is said that our nation has continued to lose huge foreign direct investments, which would have brought in more economic opportunities, especially for our youths, just because the Buhari Presidency and the APC cannot deliver on good governance.
The preference by Twitter for Ghana over Nigeria has further demonstrated that the Buhari administration’s claims on ease of doing business in Nigeria are mere media hypes.
Moreover, if President Buhari and the APC have the interest of the struggling youth demography of our nation at heart, they ought to have taken the necessary proactive steps to ensure that @Twitter brought this huge investment to Nigeria, particularly given that we have the highest number of @Twitter users on the continent.
It is indeed disturbing that the Buhari administration is taking no decisive steps to address the worsening situation in our country, which has become the world poverty capital under their watch.
The incompetence, insensitivity, corruption and laid-back attitude of the Buhari administration have continued to bring woes to our nation with an escalated 33% unemployment rate, closure of over 40 million hitherto vibrant businesses with millions of families now unable to afford the necessities of life.
It is painful that despite our national potentials, President Buhari administration has not shown the required commitment of engaging foreign investors and captains of industries to attract investments as being done by Presidents of other countries.
Instead, the Buhari Presidency is only interested in accumulating foreign loans and mortgaging the future of our nation.
It has therefore become clearer that our nation cannot achieve any headway with the APC on the saddle.
The PDP, therefore, charges Nigerians to remain focused as we collectively rally on the opportunities granted by democracy to rescue our nation from the stranglehold misrule.
