By Emmanuel Nduka
The Nigerian Government says it is set to amend relevant statutes and code to enforce the operational conditions of Twitter in Nigeria on other social media platforms.
This announcement was made by the country’s Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed in Cairo at a meeting with the Egyptian Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Dr Amir Talaat.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was on the sidelines of a bilateral discussion with Africa Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) on how Nigeria can access funding to support its growing creative industry.
Mohammed had led some private sector stakeholders involved in Digital Switch Over (DSO), to Afreximbank to assist them on how they can source fund to complete the wholly private sector financially driven project.
The Minister in his interaction with Talaat, disclosed that Nigeria was amending its National Broadcasting Act and Broadcasting Code to ensure that all online platforms operating in the country must comply with stipulated conditions.
He added that the decision was borne out of the recent development on suspension of Twitter operations in the country and the agreement reached before the suspension was lifted.
“The beauty of the engagement with Twitter is immense.
“Whatever applies to twitter will apply to all other social media platforms, be it WhatsApp, Facebook or any other.
“That is why we will be having a retreat to amend the NBC Act and the NBC Code to incorporate these new gains we made with the engagement with twitter,” he avowed.
Speaking on the agreement reached with twitter, which the Minister said would be applicable to other online platforms, he said the micro blogging site had agreed to open the Nigerian office within the first quarter of 2022.
According to Mohammed, twitter agreed to appoint a designated country representative within one month of lifting its suspension, while its global policy team would also be available to engage directly with the government
He further informed his counterpart that twitter agreed to meet all regulatory demands, including Companies and Allied Matters Act, Nigeria Communication Commission laws and rules and National Broadcasting Commission Code.
