Twitter has met seven of FG’s 10 requests – Lai Mohammed

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, says the Federal Government is awaiting Twitter’s response on three final requests made to the social media platform before its suspension can be lifted.

He said Twitter had met seven of the 10 requests presented to the platform and that Nigeria should lift the ban before the end of the year.

Mohammed, who spoke with Reuters on Thursday, said the government had reached agreements on seven of the 10 requests made to Twitter but was waiting for the company’s response on final issues, including setting up a local office, paying tax locally and cooperating with the government to regulate content and harmful tweets.

“We certainly want to put this behind us before the end of the year,” Mohammed said.

The government suspended Twitter on June 4 after it removed a post from President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish regional secessionists.

It was a culmination of months of tension. Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey’s posts encouraging donations to anti-police brutality protests last October and Twitter posts from Nnamdi Kanu, a Biafran separatist leader currently on trial in Abuja, infuriated authorities.

Mohammed said Twitter “made their platform the platform of choice for separatists”, and was suspended because it threatened national unity.

Last month, Nigeria’s broadcasting regulator asked TV stations to curb their reporting of security issues in the country by withholding details of incidents and victims.

Mohammed said concerns over deteriorating freedom of speech were the result of misinformation, adding that he was currently in Washington DC meeting with journalists and opinion leaders in an effort to counter such misunderstandings.