‘People are taking advantage of the #TwitterBan to blackmail Government’ – Festus Keyamo

The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, says some Nigerians have been taking advantage of the #TwitterBan in the country to blackmail the Federal Government.

Speaking during an interview on Channels Television program; Politics Today on Tuesday, the minister said 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.

“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,”

“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?” he added.

On Tuesday, The Economic Community of West African State (ECOWAS) Court of Justice sitting in Abuja delivered a judgement restraining the Federal Government from arresting any Nigerian on account of their use of Twitter.

The court held that the use of the social media platform is a fundamental right of every Nigerian.

The Nigerian government had threatened to arrest and prosecute anyone using Twitter, while the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) asked all broadcast stations to suspend the use of the social media platform after President Buhari’s tweet was deleted by the platform.

The ruling followed the suit filed against the government by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and 176 concerned Nigerians over the development.

Reacting to the ruling, feyamo says; “I have not seen anywhere where they said the ECOWAS court is the moral thermometer or barometer to decide whether Nigeria’s image is bad or not”.