Olusola Bello
The Federal Government has hit back at Twitter for deleting an offensive tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari on Nigerian civil war in which over three million Igbo were killed.
Twitter has temporarily suspended Nigeria’s president from the site over complaints that he had threatened genocide against rebels.
Buhari had on Tuesday when he met with INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu 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.”
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed said Twitter might have its own rules, but said they were not the universal rules.
He said if the President, anywhere in the world, felt very bad and concern about a situation, he was free to express such views.
“Now, we should stop comparing apples with oranges. If an organisation is proscribed, it is different from any other which is not proscribed,” he said.
Mohammed stated that any organisation that gave directives to its members, to attack police stations, to kill policemen, to attack correctional centres, to kill warders, “and you are now saying that Mr President does not have the right to express his dismay and anger about that?
He said Twitter is guilty about double standard, saying he did not see anywhere in the world where a person would stay outside the country and would be directing his members to attack the symbols of authority.
“They are the ones guilty of double standards. I don’t see anywhere in the world where an organisation, a person will stay somewhere outside Nigeria and will direct his members to attack the symbols of authority, the police, the military, especially when that organisation has been proscribed.
“By whatever name, you can’t justify giving orders to kill policemen or to kill anybody you do not agree with,” he stated.
