Nigeria’s ban on Twitter operation within the country has entered 26 days, and despite the financial implications on citizens, the Federal Government doesn’t seem ready to lift the ban.
According to calculations on the NetBlocks Cost of Shutdown Tool (COST), it was gathered that daily, the country loses N2.17 billion daily.
The ban had been announced in the first week of this month, on June 5, but has yet to be lifted 27 days after. This translate to a loss of N58.78 billion.
The loss is spread across active users monetizing the microblogging platform, some of which are influencers, media organisations, artisans, amongst others.
House of Representatives support ban despite losses
Despite the revenue losses experienced by Nigerians, the House of Representatives have also backed the decision by voting in favour of the ban.
The house had asked for an investigation be carried out by the the Committee on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Value, Telecommunication, Information Technology, Justice, and National Security and Intelligence.
Following several recommendations from the committee, their report suggesting the ban remain in place was adopted by the chambers – this is despite acknowledging that the restriction have a negative effect on the livelihood of Nigerians.
Twitter to charge Nigerian users, others
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that Twitter plans to charge its users, including Nigerians on the social media platform.
The charge comes with new features, which will allow users undo already posted tweets or make changes to their interface. This will cost users $3.
This is one of the ways Twitter wants to monetise its microblogging site which has over 30 million users in Nigeria.
