The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has said it will amend relevant statutes and codes to enforce the operational conditions of Twitter in Nigeria on other social media platforms.
In spite of irrefutably overwhelming evidence provided by on-the-spot eyewitness accounts by Nigerians, CNN, and the Lagos State judicial panel on EndSARS-related abuses, Misinformation Minister Lai Mohammed insists that the government-sanctioned mass murder of unarmed protesters at Lekki is “fake news” and “tales by moonlight.”
At the Nigerian International Partnership Forum in Paris, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed has stated that Twitter was never banned in the country but rather suspended.
At a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed described the event at Lekki toll gate as a 'phantom massacre'.
The Presidency has said that the condition for lifting the suspension imposed on Twitter will apply to all Over-The-Top and other social media platforms in Nigeria.
In an objection to a suit filed by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, the Federal Government argued that the ECOWAS court of justice lacks the law to determine the criminalization of an act under Nigerian laws.
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has filed a lawsuit asking the Federal High Court in Abuja “to stop the Federal Government and the Minister of Information and Culture, Mr Lai Muhammed from using their patently unlawful directive to all TV and radio stations not to use Twitter, and to delete their accounts as a pretext to harass, intimidate, suspend or impose criminal punishment on journalists and broadcast stations simply for using social media platforms.”
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed has stated that the Federal Government has the right to monitor contents including those on Twitter.
A human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong , has sued the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), and the Federal Government for suspending social media platform, Twitter.
Nigeria’s Minister of Information Lai Mohammed says the Attorney General Abubakar Malami would ensure that Nigerians who accessed Twitter, including Pastor Enoch Adeboye, after the federal government proclaimed a ban on it would be prosecuted.
Reacting to a suspension, Twitter's Senior Policy Communications Manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Sarah Hart, says the company is investigating the development.
In the just-released Country Policy and Information Note Nigeria: Biafran secessionist groups, the United Kingdom Visa and Immigration department has directed its decision-makers to consider if a person “who actively and openly supports IPOB is likely to be at risk of arrest and detention, and ill-treatment which is likely to amount to persecution”.
In a meeting with newspaper editors in Lagos State, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has stated that nobody can stop the government from investigating protesters.
Despite video evidence to the contrary, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has denied announcing an increment in the fine for hate speech from N500, 000 to N5m.
