After over 100 days of suspending Twitter operations in Nigeria, the Federal Government has said it is close to lifting the ban.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, revealed this while answering questions from State House journalists at the end of Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said both parties are close to reaching a resolution with Twitter on areas of disagreement is now very close.
“I think even Twitter itself two days ago gave what I will call a progress report on our talks with them, and I think if I want to quote them rightly it has been productive and quite respectful.
“And as to the qualifying word for when or how soon, I want to assure you that the time that Twitter operation has been suspended, between the time it has been suspended, and when it will be restored is by far, much, much shorter.
“That I can assure you that it is by far in other words, if the operation has been suspended for about 100 days now, I can tell that we’re just actually talking about a few, just a few more days now,” he said.
Asked further to be specific on when the matter would be resolved, he said, “Honestly, we have gone very far, I won’t be specific but we have gone very far, and honestly, it’s just going to be very, very soon, just take my word for that.”
Further pressed to be specific, he said, “Honestly, I can’t be more specific than what I’ve told you that it is going to be very soon. Thank you.”
Recall that the Nigerian government had on June 5 announced the suspension of Twitter operations in Nigeria.
Following the ban, government officials and government agencies stopped their patronage of the micro-blogging platform.
Nigerians have however continued to access the social media network through the use of Virtual Private Network (VPN).
