By Myke Uzendu, Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has vehemently rejected the suspension of the social media platform, Twitter, by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government, describing it as a draconian action and a slide towards a fascist regime in the country.
The social media giant had deleted a tweet on President Buhari’s handle where he threatened to unleash war on the South East over consistent destruction of public assets and killings going on in the region.
The party in a statement on Friday by it’s Spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan asserted that the suspension of twitter, is a vexatious, condemnable and barbaric move to muzzle Nigerians, particularly the youths, ostensibly to prevent them from holding the overtly corrupt, vindictive and divisive Buhari administration accountable for its atrocities, including human right violations, patronizing of terrorists and outright suppressive acts against innocent Nigerians.
“Our party is appalled that the Federal Government could exhibit such primitive intolerance and power intoxication because the social media giant demonstrated international best practices in not allowing the Buhari presidency to use Twitter as a platform to propagate and spread the Buhari administration’s hatred towards Nigerians.
“The PDP insists that rather than being a platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence, as claimed by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, Nigerians, particularly the youths, have been using the social media platform, largely, for activities that promote unity, as well as social, economic and commercial interaction in our country”.
PDP noted that Mr. Lai Mohammed, in his statement, failed to cite an example of where Nigerians used Twitter as a platform to promote acts that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence as he claimed.
The party said that the failure to give any such instance, confirms that the Federal Government is only out to victimize Nigerians.
“The Buhari Presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration are only afraid of Nigerians on Twitter because of their evil machinations for which they dread the Nigerian youths.
“Moreover, freedom of speech is firmly guaranteed in our constitution and the Buhari administration should be ready to face Nigerians over its misrule.
“In the case of any infringement, our nation has adequate extant laws to deal with such and not this move to gag the people”.
The PDP charged President Buhari to end the assault against Nigerians by immediately and unconditionally rescinding its decision to ban Twitter, as such amounts to pushing the citizens to the wall.
“Afterall, it was the same Twitter that provided President Buhari and the APC the platform to campaign in 2015 and 2019.
“It is also on record that President Buhari would not be the first President in the world whose tweet would be deleted.
“When it happened to former US President Donald Trump, he was not known to have deployed any act coercion against Twitter” PDP noted.
The party invited President Buhari to halt the international shame by rescinding this ugly decision.
