The Federal Government has said assured Nigerians that the ban placed on the Microblogging platform, Twitter, would be lifted in few more days.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, gave the assurance on Wednesday while fielding questions from State House correspondents after the meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
TheFact Nigeria recalled that the nigerian government had directed telecommunications companies in the country to block access to Twitter after the microblogging platform deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari which they said was in violation to its community guidelines.
The Buhari led administration said Twitter was suspended because it provided an Avenue for people threatening the corporate existence of Nigeria
The Government had listed conditions that must be met by Twitter before the ban will be lifted . One of them is that , the platform must be registered in Nigeria as a business concern.
There are reports that Nigeria has lost at least $360 million over the Twitter ban. However, the minister did not give a specific timeline on when the suspension would be lifted.
Mohammed said, “I think even Twitter itself two days ago gave what I will call a progress report on our talks with them, and I think if I want to quote them rightly, it has been productive and quite respectful.
“And as to the qualifying, when, how soon is soon, right? I want to assure you that the time that Twitter operation has been suspended, between the time it has been suspended, and when it will be restored is by far, much, much shorter.
“In other words, if the operation has been suspended for about 100 days now, I can tell that we’re just actually talking about a few, just a few more days now.
“What we’re trying to do is the changes that have been going on, but we need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, but I can assure us that we’re not mindful of the anxiety of Nigerians and both parties are working very hard to put a closure on the matter.
“And like Twitter itself said the changes have been very, very productive on both parties. It has not been advisory at all. And it’s quite respectful. Thank you very much.”
When asked to give a specific timeline on when the matter would be resolved, Mohammed said: “Honestly, we have gone very far, I won’t be specific, but we have gone very far, and honestly, it’s just going to be very, very soon, just take my word for that.
“Honestly, I can’t be more specific than what I’ve told you that it is going to be very soon.”
