The Prospective Negative Effects of Banning Twitter in Nigeria by Mubarak Akapo

The Prospective Negative Effects of Banning Twitter in Nigeria by Mubarak Akapo

Twitter is an American microblogging and one of the social networking services in which users post and interact with one another. The posts by the users of Twitter are known as Tweets while the posters are called Tweeps. The use of Twitter in Nigeria, according to the Nigerian government, is in two ways, either the good way or the bad way. However, the bad way is seen high than the good way because social networking service has caused a lot of chaos among the youths in the country. Therefore, the Nigerian government officially put a stop to Twitter in Nigeria and restricted the users from using the social networking platform on June 5th,2021. Banning Twitter could possibly result in some negative effects that would affect the government and the users.

Banning Twitter is likely to get Twitter influencers jobless. The increase in internet penetration has multiply the number of people making a living on the Internet. It has grown so much that, anyone with many dedicated followers could make a deal with organizations in the country. Now that it has been banned in the country, many of these Twitter influencers would be affected because Twitter is the primary platform for most of them, many of these influencers don’t really use other social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp e.t.c. If the organization the influencers are working with could afford VPN many of the influencers might not be able to afford it and if they could afford it, it could be another expenses from them. Either ways, this might not end well for these influencers.

In addition, it is likely that banning Twitter might lead to protest. As Twitter was banned on the 5th of June, the government lay down a rule that, any citizen caught using Twitter should be arrested. According to the previous protest ‘Endsars’, the protest was based on the infringement of human rights, so as the banning of Twitter is seen as an infringement of human rights. Besides, it is not in the Constitution that citizens do not have right to social media networking. The protest is likely to have the support of some dignitaries especially Lawyers, because the human right activists are rising to defend the citizens and users of Twitter from getting arrested. If the banning of Twitter leads to protest, which it would eventually lead to, it will affect the government because in any independent country, if a protest should take place for more than 30 days, there would be an intervention by the United Nations (U.N) and there are possibilities that the country might be on lockdown.

To sum it up, it is likely to have a negative effect on Businesses in the country. Over the past few years, businesses have grown fast through the social networking platform (Twitter) and a lot of online businesses have been created. The banning of Twitter is likely to cause less investors outside the country to partner with Nigerian investors and this will affect the government itself. Also, it would affect the public investors in the country, as said earlier, most of the businesses we have today are online businesses, therefore, there would not be interaction between the public investors and the audience, this might lead to shutdown to many businesses. If not so, their would be loss of customers which is not so good.

In conclusion, the banning of Twitter might lead to the points explained above, which might cause a lot of destructions in the country. In the meantime, I would suggest that the government should lift the ban on Twitter and resolve the issue in a way that, it would favour both the government and the citizens. Resolving the issue would bring peace and hinder the chaos and social unrest discussed above not to happen. I would say that, the government should take the situation under advisement.

Mubarak Akapo, Undergraduate. Department of English Language. Lagos State University.