The federal government has decried social media giant, Twitter of double standards over the deleted tweets of President Muhammadu Buhari where he threatened to deal with secessionists in the South East region of the country on Tuesday, in the same fashion as the three months civil war Nigeria endured in the late 60s.
The President, in a series of tweets on Tuesday, via his verified Twitter handle, @MBuhari, had tweeted “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.”
Twitter, however, deleted the tweet, stating, “this Tweet violated the Twitter Rules”.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, while reacting to questions over the deletion of the tweets, said Twitter had not been fair to Nigeria on issues concerning the country’s domestic issues, describing the company’s role in Nigeria as suspect, The Nation is reporting.
According to the Minister, the social media giant had conveniently ignored inciting tweets by the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, and his cohorts, displaying the same biases it did during the #ENDSARS protest, where government and private properties were looted and set on fire, all in the name of right to protest, it found the President’s tweets offensive.
“Twitter may have its own rules; it’s not the universal rule. If Mr. President, anywhere in the world feels very bad and concerned about a situation, he is 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.
“Two, any organisation that gives 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? We 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,” Mohammed said.