By John Ikani
A tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari’s threatening to treat Nigerians “misbehaving” in “the language they understand” has been deleted by Twitter.
In the tweet shared on Tuesday, Buhari spoke about his civil war experience and threatened to deal with those “bent on destroying” Nigeria through “insurrection.”
The president’s tweet followed widespread attacks on public facilities by unknown attackers in the region, but critics said his comments were an escalation of violence and a promotion of genocide rather than an attempt to curb the excesses of criminals rampaging across the South-East.
Reacting, Nigerians on social media took to Twitter to drag the President for making such threats towards a particular tribe.
They also reported the tweet and also called for the suspension of the President’s account by the management of Twitter.
Checks by Heritage Times confirmed that the President’s comments have be deleted and replaced by a label stating that it was no longer available, a development which confirms that the tweet was a violation of its policy.
How did Buhari’s tweet violate Twitter policy?
Mr Buhari’s tweet boasted about the role he played alongside other Nigerian military officers in the Nigerian Civil War of 1966-70, during which over three million Igbo civilians were killed, many of them rounded up and shot at close range or starved to death.
The tweet was essentially similar to a post by the Chinese Embassy in Washington that defended China’s policies towards Muslim Uighurs in the Xinjiang region. Twitter deleted it in January and marked as dehumanisation of a protect ethnic group of Uighur.
Fate of Buhari’s Twitter account
The Nigerian leader may also be locked out of his account for 24 hours or face a temporary suspension for the offensive tweet.
This is as Twitter locked the account of China’s embassy in the United States for its Tweet against Muslim Uighurs which it said violated the firm’s policy against “dehumanisation”.
