Katsina Lawmaker throws weight behind Twitter ban

By Christiana Ekpa

A Member of the House of Representatives representing Daura/Maiadua/Sandamu Federal Constituency of Katsina State, Fatuhu Muhammad has thrown his weight behind the ban of Twitter by the Federal Government.
The House had mandated the Committees on Communication, Justice, Information and Culture, and National Security and Intelligence to immediately commence an investigation to determine the circumstances of the decision by the Federal Government to suspend the operations of Twitter.
The joint Committee was also mandated to invite the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed to brief the House of on the objectives, intent, and duration of the suspension on the operations of Twitter in Nigeria, and to report to the House within ten (10) days.
But at investigative hearing on Tuesday, Muhammad, a member of the Committee and lawmaker representing President Muhammadu Buhari in the Green Chamber moved that the entire social should be kept aside to look into other problems Nigeria is facing.
Muhammad (APC) said if Twitter was not suspended on the instruction of the President, it would have thrown the nation into jeorpady and called for total regulation of the media.
“We should please, please regulate the media. If that tweet (sic) was not brought down the dirty things that will happen in Nigeria will be more than what we are seeing now.
“If the Minister did not banned the Twitter by the instruction of the President, the kind of insult the sovereignty of Nigeria we have from the users of tweet (sic) will be more dangerous than what we are facing now.
“For God’s sake what is social media? Are we eating social media? Let’s keep this aside and face the real problem we are facing in Nigeria”, he said.
The Information Minister, Mohammed said if other social media platforms (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc) allowed themselves to be misused like Twitter, their operations would be suspended by the Government.
He said the Federal Government suspended Twitter because it became a platform of choice for those that want to bring down the country, insisting that the platform was not banned but temporarily suspended.