Nigeria’s Twitter Ban.
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A prelude to a bloody revolution?
The banning of twitter in Africa’s largest economy took place over a month ago. Those whose businesses are inextricably linked to selling their wares online have found things pretty hard going, ever since.
The blanket ban by the Nigerian government was in retaliation to twitter’s decision to delete the post of President Muhammadu Buhari, whose incendiary comments evoked the painful, bitter memories of the civil war.
His tweet (pictured below) was in response to the agitation of a fringe group, called the indigenous people of Biafra(IPOB).
That vast numbers of people have circumvented the ban by downloading VPNs shouldn’t come as a surprise to international observers, after all, Nigerians aged 25 and under belong to the majority demographic and they are as digitally savvy as their contemporaries in the west, east and elsewhere.
Since the transition from the military to the democratically elected government in 1999, Nigerians have seen a precipitous decline in their general living standards, health and life expectancy.
The national currency has plummeted against the dollar, thus immiserating millions of people across the country. What used to compare favourably to the dollar in the 1970s and the early 80s during the country’s golden years, has weakened beyond all comprehension and consideration.
That Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the world, a country in which more than 100 million live in extreme deprivation and poverty is something with which Nigerians are well acquainted.
The illiterate and profoundly corrupt political class
The political class is mainly populated by an illiterate group of men, who have very little by way of education or erudition and have no idea of how to govern, one of the most complex…
