Comedian Bright Okpocha also known as Basketmouth has said that the indefinite suspension of the social media platform, Twitter, by the Nigerian government isn’t surprising to him.
The stand-up comedian on Sunday said the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has always shown tendencies that violate freedom of expression.
He said this in a 2-minute video he posted on his verified Instagram titled, “can someone in Ghana help me tweet this video? You know that we can’t tweet in Nigeria anymore…they have bandits”.
The comedian-cum-actor also said the Twitter suspension is only the beginning of more things to come.
“This thing will not end with Twitter, they will still say IPOB uses Instagram to do their meeting and ban it, the next thing, they will say bandits use the Facebook app to track people to know their faces and kidnap them and ban it. They will ban everything,” he said.
“Very soon, they will find excuses for the next apps, from Instagram to Facebook, to Tik-Tok, to everything down to email, they will ban everything so that none of us will be able to communicate. Very soon, we will start using letters, they will tell us to start using letters henceforth. It is just that NIPOST is not functional, we will start using birds, I need to buy some birds.”
Basketmouth also said the federal government announced the suspension months after “one of them” said Facebook has been banned in China and they operate “their own internal social media that is run by the government.
“Not long after the statement was made, a former presidential aspirant Adamu Garba announced that he has created an app with a similar function as Twitter, said Basket mouth. “Then the next thing, they banned Twitter and said Twitter spreads fake news that leads to violence,” he added.
PREMIUM TIMES reported how Nigerian entertainers, Ruggedman, Seyi Law accused Mr Garba of supporting the Twitter ban in a bid to promote his Crowwe app.
The ministry of information on Friday suspended Twitter shortly after the platform deleted President Muhammdu Buhari’s “genocidal” tweet.
The Twitter suspension is a step towards further social media sanction, a statement released by the ministry said.
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