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Nigerians Using Twitter Ban To Blackmail FG – Minister
- The ECOWAS Court, on Tuesday, restrained the Federal Government from imposing sanctions or harassing, intimidating, arresting, or prosecuting Twitter users.
Minister of State for Labour and Employment of Nigeria, Festus Keyamo, has lamented that some Nigerians have been taking undue advantage of the #TwitterBan in the country to blackmail the Federal Government.
According to Keyamo, the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government has never used any social media platform to promote content that was capable of “setting the country ablaze”.
He said this in response to questions that the party used the same social media to rise to power back in 2015, stressing that the goal of the government with the #TwitterBan is not to stifle free speech.
Read also: [JUST IN] ECOWAS Court Restrains FG From Prosecuting Twitter Users
“As a political party APC, can you tell us examples when we tried to use social media platforms to set the country ablaze?,” Keyamo asked, adding “we should not be blackmailed into a corner and behave as if we are acting against our own principles.
“We are not talking about stifling free speech. People have been using this as a blackmail weapon that we rode to power using social media. That is blackmail because we need to set specific examples where we use social media to undermine the territorial integrity and peace and unity of Nigeria,” he told Channels Television’s Politics Today.
He added: “Nobody is saying that people should not use social media platforms, nobody is saying that we should not call government officials to question. Nobody is saying that you should not even abuse us but is it right for you to go to social media and promote false stories that are capable of turning one part of the country against another?”
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