Femi Falana, a human rights lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, says the Federal Government erred in suspending Twitter operations in the country.
According to Falana, in a constitutional democracy, the government is not permitted to resort to self-help, which implies that rather than place a ban, the government is supposed to have “sued Twitter if the organization refuses to respond positively to the concerns of the government”.
According to the senior lawyer who was a guest on the Wednesday edition of Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, the Federal Government should either have sued Twitter in the United States of America or in Ghana where the microblogging service provider has its African headquarters.
The government had said that there has been a litany of problems with Twitter in Nigeria, labeling the platform as a place where misinformation and fake news spread, however, the ban on Twitter was only placed after President Buhari’s tweet referencing the civil war was deleted.
In his opinion, Falana said there is no ground on which the action of the government can be justified. The rights activist said 40 million Twitter subscribers in Nigeria cannot be disenfranchised over one person’s ego.
