Nigerians have accused President Muhammadu Buhari of trying to play smart ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Reacting to the lifting of the ban on Twitter, some Nigerians said the Buhari government was trying to bribe them ahead of the polls.
The lifting of the ban followed approval by President Muhammadu Buhari after 222 days.
The decision was revealed by the Chairman Technical Committee Nigeria-Twitter Engagement and Director-General National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi.
In a statement on Wednesday in Abuja, Kashifu noted the approval was given following a memo written to Buhari by his Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Ali Ibrahim.
The Nigerian government had in June 2021, banned the operations of Twitter in the country. The ban was placed a few days after the micro-blogging site deleted Buhari’s tweet.
However, Nigerians raised an eye-brow about lifting the ban about a year before the 2023 general elections.
While others berated the Nigerian government, others commended authorities for the step taken.
Some tweets gathered, read below…
@rapizo: “Buhari is trying to play smart, we are in a pre-election year. He is trying to get Nigerians to vote for APC.”
@teribamos: “Our president is trying to bribe Nigerians, why wait till now to lift the Twitter ban in Nigeria? We will not be deceived by this bribe.”
@zyinab: “This is a welcomed development for Nigerians. The ban became necessary because of those miscreants using the platform to inflame terrorism.”
@chibu_zor: “Lifting ban at this time is good, and God bless this govt. Businesses affected can pick up now and we can start earning money on the platform.”
@fefeyebz: “Thank God that the Govt lifted the ban, we can now return to factory settings. No more using of VPN that makes my phone very hot as if it’s burning. We can also start running our business now.”
