First lady, Aisha Buhari, has deactivated her Twitter account following the indefinite suspension of Twitter operation in Nigeria by the Federal Government.
“I will be deactivating my twitter account for now. Long live Federal Republic of Nigeria,” the wife of Nigerian President tweeted before deactivating her account on Friday evening.
The first lady’s announcement of the deactivation of her Twitter account came as Nigerians on Satu4day morning could not access the microblogging site, except through Virtual Private Network (VPN) providers which hide their internet footprints.
The Federal Government had Friday suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the microblogging and social networking service site in Nigeria, citing the persistent use of the Twitter platform for activities that were capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.
The Twitter ban was announced by the Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, two days after Twitter deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet posted Tuesday wherein he threatened to deal with secessionists “in the language they understand”.
The social media giant had said the tweet violated the Twitter Rules.
The President had released series of tweets after meeting with the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, at the State House in Abuja on Tuesday, wherein he warned that those promoting insurrection and those sponsoring destruction of critical national assets would soon have the shock of their lives.
He also threatened to deal with “those misbehaving today” “in the language they understand.”
Though the President tweeted five tweets on his meeting with Prof. Yakubu, it was the last tweet that Twitter said violated its rules and was deleted, while the remaining four tweets were retained.
In the controversial tweet which had been widely criticized by twitter users, President Buhari said: “Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War. Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.”
The federal government had accused Twitter of taking sides and said its was suspicious of the microblogging site’s role in the IPOB agitation for Biafra.
