Former President Donald Trump has issued a statement supporting the Nigerian government’s decision to indefinitely suspend Twitter activities in the West African country and has called on more nations to follow suit.
“Congratulations to the country of Nigeria, who just banned Twitter because they banned their President,” Former President Trump said in an emailed statement.
“More COUNTRIES should ban Twitter and Facebook for not allowing free and open speech—all voices should be heard,” he further stated adding that more competitors will emerge and take hold in the meantime.
Questioning the arbitrary functioning of big-tech companies like Twitter, the Former US President asked, “Who are they to dictate good and evil if they themselves are evil?”.
“Perhaps I should have done it while I was President. But Zuckerberg kept calling me and coming to the White House for dinner telling me how great I was. 2024?” Donald Trump said in his statement.
The statement of support from Trump comes days after Nigeria suspended Twitter indefinitely last Friday after the micro-blogging site began to interfere in the domestic affairs of the West African country.
It is important to note that Donald Trump himself has received a permanent ban from Twitter following the riots at the US Capitol on January 6 this year. On Friday, Facebook announced that the former President would be banned from the platform for two years, at least till January 7, 2023.
Trump had reacted to the Facebook ban and had termed it “an insult to the record-setting 75M people, plus many others, who voted for us in the 2020 Rigged Presidential Election.”
Nigeria indefinitely suspends Twitter
Last week, the Nigerian government announced that it has indefinitely suspended Twitter’s activities. The move came two after Twitter had deleted a Tweet by president Muhammadu Buhari warning against secessionist movements.
The social media giant had deleted a tweet by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari claiming that the tweet had threatened secessionist groups in the Biafra region.
“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,” Buhari had tweeted, referring to the Biafra Conflict, which killed 1 million people between 1967 and 1970.
“Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand,” the tweet read.
In addition to deleting the tweet for violating its “abusive behavior’ policy, Twitter had brazenly suspended Buhari’s account for 12 hours.
Following the suspension of Buhari’s account, Nigeria Information Minister Lai Mohammed had acted swiftly to indefinitely suspend Twitter’s activities in the country.
“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…We have a country to rule, and we will do so to the best of our ability. Twitter’s mission in Nigeria is very suspect, they have an agenda. The mission of Twitter in Nigeria is very suspicious,” the Nigerian minister had said after suspending Twitter’s operation in the country.
