- Soyinka, Ozekhome react, berate govt’s decision
The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has slammed the Federal Government over its indefinite suspension of the operations of microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, threatening legal action if the action is not reversed immediately.
According to the NBA, the action is in contravention of Nigerians’ constitutional right to freely express their views via Twitter or any other medium they so desire to patronise.
Reacting to the development, NBA President Olumide Akpata said: “The Nigerian Bar Association has noted with great concern the extraordinary decision of the Federal Govt to suspend the operations of Twitter in Nigeria and, by necessary implication, the right of Nigerians to freely express their constitutionally guaranteed opinions through that medium.
“The NBA finds no constitutional or legal authority to support the peremptory action of the Federal Government to suspend the operations of Twitter in Nigeria.
“Beyond the dent on our constitutional democracy, at a time when the Nigerian economy is unarguably struggling, the impact of arbitrary decisions such as this on investor confidence is better imagined.”
Maintaining that its action against the government is on behalf of Nigerians, Akpata further said; “Consequently, if this decision is not immediately reversed, the NBA will have no choice but to challenge same in the interest of the public and for the sake of our democracy.”
On his part, Nobel Laureate, Profesor Wole Soyinka branded the Twitter ban a “petulant gesture” that is “unbecoming of a democratically elected president.”
He said: “if Buhari has a problem with Twitter, he is advised to sort it out between them personally, the way Donald Trump did, not rope in the right to free expression of the Nigerian citizen as collateral damage.
“In any case, this is a technical problem Nigerians should be able to work their way around. The field of free expression remains wide open, free of any dictatorial spasms!”
Reacting in a similar manner, Constitutional lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mike Ozekhome berated the government in a statement captioned; ‘When a tottering government twiddles Twitter’
”What does Nigerian government think Twitter loses by being suspended? It is just the Nigerian people that will suffer, in the same way, the government has been punishing Nigerians in the last six years.
“Twitter will not even bother whether Nigerians use Twitter or not. We are 210 million people in Nigeria. Of this number, only about 33 million Nigerians are active on social media. Less than 15 million of these are on Twitter”, Ozekhome said
The Senior lawyer further said; “On the other hand, there are well over 300 million people across the world that use Twitter. So Twitter will not feel it. It is just like a drop of water in an ocean. Twitter will not even know that a country has suspended it.
“So, it is the same beleaguered Nigerian people that will suffer, not the Federal Government or Twitter, because the Federal Government is a minute minuscule aspect of the Nigerian society, made up of only a few selected elite that do not care about the common man.
“This is the same government that undeservedly rode to power using the same Twitter and other social media platforms it now detests….I am very ashamed.”
