President Muhammadu Buhari addressing the nation as it marked its 61st independence Day, spoke highly of social media and its positive impact on the country. He however expressed some concerns about how social media platforms affect lives in the country.
President Buhari said the medium serves as a “”platform to organize, coordinate, and execute criminal activities, propagate fake news, and promote ethnic and religious sentiments.” He noted this led to the pulling of the operational access granted Twitter in June.
He continued that twitter had to resolve some critical issues before the ban placed on them can be lifted as a committee set up to resolve issues has agreed on.
“As a country, we are committed to ensuring that digital companies use their platform to enhance the lives of our citizens, respect Nigeria’s sovereignty, cultural values and promote online safety,” the President added.
Some of the conditions to be met by include registering an office in the country to be taxed by the government. Also twitter shall be mandated to retain designated local agents to manage its engagement with federal government operations in Nigeria. Twitter agreeing on a charter of online conduct for content management.
