Twitter Suspension In National Interest — Geoffrey Onyeama

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, on Monday, said that  Nigeria’s suspension of Twitter is in the interest of national security and peace.

Onyeama made the declaration at the end of a closed-door meeting he held with ambassadors and representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland and the EU.

He told newsmen that President Muhammadu Buhari was keen on ensuring the peace and security of Nigerians and Nigeria.

The minister stressed that the government’s major objective was to advocate responsible use of social media platforms that would not destabilise the peace and unity of the country.

He said: “We had very useful discussions and we just restated the security concerns of Mr President and of all Nigerians and the very strong steps that needed to be taken to address security challenges in the country.

''They (the envoys) are all living here with us in Nigeria and have a fair view and experience of the security challenges we are facing.

“We discussed the role of social media as platforms which could be used to do good or bad.

''Unfortunately, the bad that social media is often used to commit have very dire consequences on human lives and in our case also, threatening the unity of the country.

“As the responsibility of the government is to maintain law and order, security, and to preserve human lives, we have to take every measure to ensure that all those are preserved.

“We believe as a democracy, that there must be the right to life, the right to property ownership and we believe in human rights and freedom of speech, but the social media has to be used responsibly.

“We had detailed discussions and our partnership and solidarity with those countries were reaffirmed.''

In her remarks, Ambassador of the United States of America to Nigeria, Mary Leonard, said the U.S. and other partners would continue to engage with Nigeria to uphold human rights and the rule of law.

She said: “I thank the minister for inviting us here today because that is what partners do. Talk about shared goals. We did speak about the issues of social media and our concerns.

''We have to be very clear that we are Nigeria’s strong partners on issues of security and we recognise the daunting task on the issues of security that confronts Nigeria.

“While they are daunting, they are not insurmountable, and part of the way you surmount them is with the partnership of the people you see represented here.

''We recognise that there are issues of the irresponsible use of social media, but we remain firm in our position that free access to the ability to express self is very important and perhaps more important in troubled times,’’ she said.

Leonard expressed satisfaction that the Nigerian government and Twitter were in talks.

She said many of the things Onyeama referred to, including incitements and violence, were crimes the Nigerian government has a legitimate right to prosecute.

“We encourage them to use judicial processes within the scope of respect for human rights and the rule of law and restrain such behaviours,” Leonard said.

The Nigerian government had on June 5, officially put an indefinite ban on Twitter restricting it from operating in Nigeria after the social media platform deleted tweets made by the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari warning the southeastern people of Nigeria predominantly occupied by the Igbo people of a potential repeat of the 1967 Biafran Civil War.

The Nigerian government claimed that the deletion of the President's tweets factored into their decision but it was ultimately based on "a litany of problems with the social media platform in Nigeria, where misinformation and fake news spread through it have had real-world violent consequences".