Nigeria finally lifts ban placed on the tech giant, Twitter

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Seven months after Twitter was banned in Africa’s most populous country, Nigerians could access the platform again on Thursday.

The return of the microblogging platform, Twitter, in Nigeria is made the headlines.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration went back on its decision to suspend the American tech giant last year.

According to local sources, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, the Director-General of the country’s National Information Technology Development Agency, announced the lift of the ban on Wednesday evening.

In June, Nigeria halted Twitter operations after the social media platform took down one of the President’s tweets in which he referred to the 1967-70 Nigerian Civil War. Authorities however accused the platform of partiality when it pleaded that tweet went against Twitter policy and guidelines

The platform has been a useful tool for young activists last year as they capitalized on it to stage a protest against police brutality using the hashtag, #EndSARS.

With more than 60% of its population aged below 25, the 40 million Nigerians who own a Twitter account will not be satisfied with the decision as it affected many people using the platform for business purposes.