By Cosmas Omegoh (Lagos), Sola Ojo (Kaduna), and Vikky Ubah (Abuja)
Nigerians have continued to count their losses following the Federal Government’s ban on Twitter.
A cross-section of Twitter users has been x-raying the losses incurred by private individuals, businesses and even government itself, while reflecting that the government action was injurious.
The Federal Government on Friday, June 5, banned Twitter operations in Nigeria, saying its activities were injurious to the country’s security and growth.
Nigeria’s Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed said: “The persistent use of the platform for activities is capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.”
But Twitter said that “the announcement made by the Nigerian government that they had suspended Twitter’s operations in Nigeria is deeply concerning,” adding that it was going to investigate the action.
However, many believed that the Federal Government ban on Twitter came after the micro-blogging outfit took down a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari, threatening to deal with youths in the southern eastern part of the country for allegedly engaging in separatist activities. Twitter had considered the statement “genocidal.”
But the Federal Government hit back at Twitter, reminding it that Nnamdi Kalu, the promoter of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) had consistently used the platform to promote secessionist tendencies.
The matter got to a head when Minister Mohammed announced a ban on Twitter, while also insisting that all other similar organisations doing business in Nigeria must be registered, show their presence and pay taxes.
Some users of Twitter had suggested resorting to the use of VPN to access their accounts and continue to tweet.
But the Federal Government again through the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, came out to say that use of Twitter within Nigeria remains illegal, vowing to prosecute anyone founded to have disobeyed the order.
Malami’s assistant on media Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, said in a statement that prosecutors had been mandated to immediately “swing into action” and “ensure the speedy prosecution of offenders without any further delay.”
But on Wednesday, June 9, 2021, Minister Mohammed disclosed that Twitter had reached out to the government with a view to resolving the impasse, suggesting that “senior-level discussion,” was underway.
Meanwhile, many who had been using Twitter before the brouhaha broke out have been expressing their concerns, revealing what the country and the citizenry are losing.
General losses
A Twitter user, Chimdindu Osuagwu, took time to chronicle the chain of losses so far incurred.
He categorised them as “individual, community/group or national levels” losses.
He indicated that the ban had “reduced connectivity to international online business platforms, just as it had brought reduction in the number of sources of online business information.”
He lamented that “users have been deprived of access to preferred source of business information channel.” This, he said, had led to “reduced number of business-to-business contacts compared with no Twitter ban situation.”
He added that the stance of the Federal Government had caused “disconnection from future business information flowing exclusively from Twitter thus leading to reduced capacity for business-to-business and executive-to-executive networking. It has also reduced social and digital capital.”
On the controversial online currency trading, Osuagwu said that “the ban had effected a big loss in cryptocurrency and online stock trading to the amount conducted via Twitter before the ban.”
Govt losses
Osuagwu feared that the Twitter ban had caused Nigeria to lose public image in the global community.
He expressed sadness that “the idea to ban Twitter was not well thought out, especially as the President of World Trade Organisation – our own Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala – is the only African on the board of Twitter.”
He insisted that “there are quantitative and qualitative impacts that are social, economic, political and health, for instance, loss of autonomy by Nigerian individuals who prefer Twitter use as human right.”
On the global scale, he asked: “For example, how did UK, USA and the West perceive democracy’ in Nigeria from the lens of the Twitter ban?
“The view of Nigerian government under Buhari is a significant negative impact,” adding that what the present administration had done had led to “perceiving government as intolerant of contrary opinion.
“Perception impact may not be measurable – but it can be significant, even if transient.”
Osuagwu added another perspective to the imbroglio, saying that “another negative impact is that it has increased the willingness of the elite to disobey or ignore government policy.
“The General Overseer of Redeemed Christian Church, Pastor Enoch Adeboye is among notable elite declaring intention to ignore the ban, while millions of citizens resorted to VPN route to access Twitter – that’s loss of reverence power on the path of government: this impact can be expressed as “reduction in the number of citizens willing to comply with government policy directive.”
A Kaduna-based social media influencer and programme associate, Connected Development (CODE), Kingsley Agu said that the ban was going to impact on good governance.
He described the government action as an attempt to prevent Nigerians from tracking government spending leading to loss of millions of Naira.
According to him, the development had also added to the country’s poverty rate profile which at the last count stood at 33 per cent, hence the need for government to find an alternative means to resolve its differences with the micro-blogging giant.
He said: “The ban on Twitter has been tensed up. Let me share some instances on how the ban is affecting good governance. For example in 2013, Follow the Money was able to track over N800 million project funds which was supposed to be used to save children from lead poisoning.
“We used social media which is basically Twitter to get this result. It is very instrumental in holding government accountable as seen being done by the Jonathan’s administration in making sure that money was used for the purpose it was released.
“Again in 2014, we have used Twitter to track over 500 housing scheme and provision of cooking stoves among others. In 2019, we were also able to track hundreds of millions that would have ended up in private pockets in Yobe State.
“You can imagine how many citizens are living like the blind because they have lost contact with their government.”
Loss to SME’s
Recall that Twitter, which started out as an app for people to voice their opinions on trending issues, quickly rose to also become an online marketing platform for business owners and sales enthusiasts.
Since the ban on Twitter, many business vendors have complained of a dramatic shift in the level of patronage. Avid users of the social media say the suspension of Twitter sends the wrong signal to foreign investors, adding that small businesses using Twitter as a source of livelihood in Nigeria had been affected.
Since the ban on Twitter, many business vendors have complained of a dramatic shift in the level of patronage. Avid users of the social media say the suspension of Twitter sends the wrong signal to foreign investors, adding that small businesses using Twitter as a source of livelihood in Nigeria had been affected.
Boboye, for instance, known on Twitter as @Boboye_Ak, is a shoe vendor on the app. He advertises his shoes and has managed to attract a lot of buyers.
According to him, “I post sneakers twice a day and the impressions these tweets get help me make sales. Since the ban, there has been a drop in the number of retweets and impressions on these tweets. I need impressions to make sales. Hence there has been a drop in sales. I am yet to make a sale since the ban was implemented even though we are still early in the month and sales are usually booming at this time of the month.”
On the opposite side of digital marketing on Twitter, are the influencers.
There is a team of young impressionable individuals who earn a living by running campaigns to promote brands and businesses on the app.
According to Chime, an influencer known as @chime_szn on Twitter, “following the Twitter ban, most brands are skeptical and afraid to embark on promotion campaigns and this has adversely affected income flow. Their fear of breaking the current rule has effectively caused a reduction in public relations campaign jobs.”
Stanley, AKA @daddystanley, another Twitter influencer, stated that brands like MTN, Malta Guinness and Chef360 Ltd had paused their running campaigns with him.
Joining in the lamentations, Agu concurred that “the ban has denied several young Nigerians who buy and sell online using Twitter. At the last count, we have 33 per cent poverty rate in Nigeria and a lot of Nigerians have just been added by this action. You don’t just cut off Twitter; you are cutting off Nigerians who are leveraging that platform to survive.”
Individual losses
Many young Nigerians have described the government action as an infringement on the rights of citizens to freedom of speech aside from the losses they had sustained.
A popular Nigerian artists David ‘Davido’ Adeleke, had bitterly complained about his inability to use his Twitter handle, a clear indication of the losses he had continued to incur. He is believed to have over 10 million followers around the world.
Religious leaders, especially Pastors William Kumuyi of the Deeper Life Bible Church and Adeboye of The Redeemed Christian Church had insisted that they would continue to tweet because they run a worldwide church and needed to reach out to their global audience, thus triggering imagination of what they were losing for not reaching out to their followers.
Michael Obadi, an Abuja-based front-end developer, expressed sadness that early on Saturday that he could not access Twitter on his phone.
“It’s sad when I woke up to realise that my Twitter was gone,” he said.
Another Twitter user, Sama Jemima, shared her experience with Sunday Sun. “At first I thought it was a joke because I didn’t expect the government to go so low.
“Twitter is like my newspaper. Whenever I want to check what’s happening in the country, I refresh my timeline. But when I woke up on that Saturday, my Twitter page could not load.”
It would also be recalled that Nigeria has been celebrated as one of the few African countries attracting investment into its tech ecosystem, but was recently shunned when Twitter which chose neighbouring Ghana for its first African headquarters.
About 39 million Nigerians have a Twitter account more than Ghana’s entire population of 32 million.