Nigeria’s First Lady, Aisha Buhari, Friday evening, deactivated her Twitter account following the Federal Government’s ban of the micro-blogging site’s operations in Nigeria.
The First Lady made this known in a short message announcing her decision Friday evening.
“I will be deactivating my Twitter account for now. Long live Federal Republic of Nigeria,” she posted on her wall shortly before deactivating her account.
Nigeria’s First Lady’s action followed her husband’s government’s announcement that it has suspended the activities of Twitter platform in the country.
The Twitter ban has been made effective as many Nigerian users could not access their accounts Saturday morning except through the Virtual Private Network (VPN) providers, who afford the opportunity to establish a protected network connection when using public networks.
While many got connected to the Twitter social media network via the VPN, their Internet footprint does not bear Nigeria but the country the VPN changes to.
Nigeria’s Information Minister Lai Mohammed, had earlier before its ban, said Twitter’s objective in Nigeria was “suspect,” as he informed that the government had decided to ban Twitter “indefinitely,” 48 hours after it deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s post warn those who sponsor violence in Nigeria.
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Nigerians had launches a campaign for Twitter to suspend the President’s account over his tweet they said could invoke genocidal attack in Nigeria.
They claimed President Buhari evoked the Civil War memory where millions of Nigerias were killed between 1967 and 1970, as he warned in his tweet that insurrectionists would be treated “in a language they understand.”
“Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand,” the President posted on Twitter.
President Buhari’s tweet which drew widespread condemnation, eventually prompted a response from Twitter after several complaints were filed by citizens, and the post was deleted by Twitter.
