Lawrence Olaoye 
…Insists Gumi’s comments not inciting
The Federal Government has described Twitter’s mission in the country as suspect having deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweets evoking the memories of the 30 months Civil War to threaten “those misbehaving” in the South-east. This observation was raised by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, at a briefing after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting chaired by the President.
Mohammed asked why Twitter has not deemed it fit to delete tweets made by the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, who has been consistently inciting the people against the government. The minister, who maintained that the President had the right to use his Twitter handle to put out his message to the public, equally accused the medium of having promoted #EndSARS protests last October.
He said: “The mission of Twitter in Nigeria is very very suspect. Has Twitter deleted the violent tweets that Nnamdi Kanu has been sending? Has it? The same Twitter during the #EndSARS protests that was funding #EndSARS protesters, it was the first to close the account of former president of US, (Donald) Trump. And you see, when people were burning police stations and killing policemen in Nigeria during #EndSARS, for Twitter, it was about the right to protest. But when a similar thing happened on the Capitol, it became ‘insurrection’. “You see, we are not going to be be fooled by anybody. We have a country to rule and we will do so to the best of our ability.
Twitter mission in Nigeria citing those two examples is very suspect. What is their agenda? “How does Mr. President speech that anybody who has destroyed infrastructure, who has destroying police offices, who has destroying INEC offices should be ready for the consequences? Is that inciting violence?” he queried. Responding to allegations of double standard because the government has yet to openly condemn Sheik Ahmad Gumi who has been publicly justifying the activities of the bandits and canvassing for amnesty for them, Muhammed said the government does not consider Gumi’s comments as inciting.
According to him, Gumi could not be equated to Kanu whom he said has been inciting the people to take arms against the government in the country adding that IPOB had already been proscribed. He pointed out that nobody asked Gumi to mediate between the bandits and the government adding that there were any people in the country who have been inciting people against the government. “There’s so many people who have been spewing hate against Mr. President, against this government. So if you want to comment, be fair; don’t take a position which is not objective. If we were to pick up everybody today who had been abusing this administration, the detention centres will be filled up and you will be the first person also to talk about lack of tolerance; lack of rule of law. But I’m saying that you cannot compare anybody with Kanu who boldly says, ‘go and kill policemen’,” he said.
