Nigerian lawmakers uphold Buhari’s Twitter ban

The House of Representatives, on Thursday, rejected the lifting of suspension on micro-blogging site, Twitter.

The rejection came while the House was considering the report of its committee on the matter.

The House had mandated its Committees on Information, ICT, Intelligence, Justice and Orientation to investigate the circumstances surrounding the suspension of Twitter by the Nigerian government.

At the consideration of the report, the Deputy Minority Leader of the House, Toby Okechukwu suggested an amendment to one of the recommendations.

It states “that the Federal Government should take into cognizance the negative effect of the Twitter suspension on Nigerians who depend on the platform for their livelihood,” and lift the suspension.

Seconded by another member, the motion was however rejected by the majority of the House when put to vote.

Just last week, the Nigerian government had announced that it had set up a committee to negotiate with social media giant, Twitter, a few weeks after a controversial government ban.

The committee had included five serving ministers of the Nigerian government, a statement from the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had said.

Nigeria recently banned Twitter after the social media platform deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari. The Nigerian government also accused Twitter of acting against the interest of Nigeria.

The ban has been condemned by many Nigerians, human rights groups and foreign governments, describing it as an attack on the freedom of expression.