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Twitter has finalized plans to open office in Nigeria for its operations and register locally as part of the conditions set by the federal government to lift the ban imposed on it last June.
The micro blogging site sees first quarter of 2022 to restart its operations in Nigeria where it maintained more than three million active users before it was unplugged by authorities in Abuja.
RELATED Nigeria Gives Condition To Lift Twitter Ban
Twitter was banned after the Nigerian government accused it of encouraging tweets that undermined national security and cohesion.
According to Statista, Nigeria had approximately 33 million active social media users as at March 2021. WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, is the most popular platform used in the country. Twitter is the 3rd most popular after Instagram.
Part of the conditions set by Abuja include:
- Open an office in Nigeria
- Have a country representative
- Register with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC)/get National Broadcasting Commission’s licence
- Payment of fair taxes
- Sensitive to national security and cohesion. It must not undermine the nation’s security
- Train Nigerian IT personnel and strategic intelligence officers on how to report Twitter abuse /infractions noticed by the government.
After series of conciliatory meetings and acceptance of the conditions to be unbanned, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said government looks forward to Twitter’s re-entry.
For now, Nigerians can only access Twitter via Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
According to data based on the VPN Adoption Index by Atlas VPN, Virtual Private Network (VPN) downloads sky-rocketed to 616 million in the first half of 2021 from 85 selected countries including Nigeria where a Twitter ban in June 2021 and a perceived aggression against social media by the authorities has fueled download of VPNs by a significant percentage of the population.
Twitter has met conditions set by the government, said a person familiar with the matter inside the Ministry of Information and Culture.
“The operation of Twitter will now be fully regulated, including the opening of office and deployment of a Country Representative. We can now hold an officer responsible for any infraction.,” said the source.
