{"id":2165,"date":"2021-06-29T15:34:08","date_gmt":"2021-06-29T15:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/?p=2165"},"modified":"2021-06-29T16:21:55","modified_gmt":"2021-06-29T16:21:55","slug":"information-minister-and-the-twitter-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/information-minister-and-the-twitter-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"Information Minister and the Twitter Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Nigeria\u2019s Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Information and Communication Technology on Tuesday, June 22 for an investigative hearing, following the Federal Government\u2019s Twitter ban. Following the ban, the House had summoned the Minister. At the hearing, the Minister who insisted that the ban of Twitter\u2019s operations in Nigeria was legal, justified his position, relying on several legislative provisions. According to him, the freedom of expression provided in section 39 of the Nigeria Constitution is not absolute in light of the provision of section 45(1) of the Constitution,\u00a0 which permits restrictions to civil liberties in a democratic society: <em>\u201c(a) In the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health or; (b) The purpose of protecting the rights and freedom of other person.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Furthermore, the Minister cited\nsection 3 of the National Security Act, which empowers the State Security\nServices (SSS) to preserve internal security, adding that the Twitter ban was\nmade pursuant to the security reports of the SSS. The Information Minister also\nreferred to section 5(1) and (2) of the Terrorism Act, 2011, which criminalise any\nform of support for terrorism, including through <em>\u201cthe internet or any electronic\nmeans or through the use of printed materials or through the dissemination of\nterrorist information<\/em>.\u201d\nHe stated that these provisions buttress the qualification of fundamental\nrights (including the freedom of expression) provided in section 45 of the\nNigerian Constitution. The reference to sections of the Terrorism Act begs the\nquestion of who was supporting or inciting acts of terrorism, how they were\ndoing so using the Twitter platform and how that led to the ban in the\ncircumstance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mohammed went ahead to underscore the\nsecurity and welfare of the people as the primary purpose of government, as\ncontained in section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution. This brings to mind, the\nplethora of insecurity issues plaguing Nigeria and highlights the disparity in\nthe government\u2019s efforts to effectively address the daily activities of\nkidnappers, criminal herdsmen, bandits, on one hand, and efforts to regulate\nthe media on the basis of security, on the other hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Minister went on to state that\nTwitter is not licensed to do business in Nigeria, according to section 78 of\nthe Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), 2020, which mandates a foreign\ncompany to be incorporated in Nigeria in order to carry on business in the\ncountry. Interestingly, Nigeria\u2019s Vice President, Professor Yemi Osibanjo, speaking\nat a meeting with the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria on Sunday,\nJune 27, stated that legal provisions will be used to tax the profits of global\ntechnology and digital firms that are not based in Nigeria but have significant\neconomic presence in the country. He made reference to section 4 of the Finance\nAct 2019, which amends the Companies Income Tax Act (CITA), as empowering the\nMinister of Finance, by an order of the President, to determine what\nconstitutes significant economic presence of a company other than a Nigerian\ncompany.&nbsp; Going by this provision, if a\nforeign company with significant economic presence in Nigeria can be taxed to\nthe extent of its operations without being registered as a Nigerian company,\nthen there appears to be no reason for such a company to seek to be registered\nin Nigeria for the purpose of carrying on its business <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another basis of the Federal Government\u2019s argument for the Twitter ban, are the provisions of sections 1,2,3 and 4 of the Cybercrimes Act, 2015; Articles 24,25 and 26 of the African Union on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection, as well as Article 19(2) and (3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It highlighted its powers to regulate and promote the security of the Nigerian cyberspace and protect the country\u2019s infrastructure from cyber threats or attacks. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It will be recalled that at the\ntime of the ban, the apparent reason for the Federal Government\u2019s action was\nthat the microblogging platform had deleted President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s tweet,\nwhich made reference to the Nigerian civil war and &nbsp;in which the President stated that agitators\nin the South East &nbsp;will be dealt with \u201cin\na language they understand.\u201d Subsequent efforts by the Federal Government to\njustify the ban are now hinged on several issues that were not initially referred\nto at the time of the ban. It will be recalled that weeks after the ban, the\nMinister accused the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey of being responsible for\nthe aftermath of the #EndSARS protest, since he had shown support for it and\ngiven visibility to it on the Twitter platform. Mohammed insists he had earlier\nraised this point. One would wonder how a peaceful protest against police\nbrutality and calls for police reform, amounts to an act of terrorism. The\nMinister in his submission to the House, also stated that the Federal\nGovernment\u2019s decision to ban Twitter is well founded in law, in light of the\nfact that the platform is used by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra\n(IPOB) to champion its activities. Observers wonder, what steps if any, the\ngovernment has taken to address the use of Twitter or any other media platform\nby IPOB or any other group perceived to constitute a threat to the nation. The Nigerian\ngovernment has repeatedly relied on the so-called security reasons in previous\nattempts to regulate social media. However, at the time of placing a ban on\nTwitter\u2019s operations, the government did not disclose national security threat\nas reason for its decision. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nigeria\u2019s Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Information and Communication Technology on Tuesday, June 22 for an investigative hearing, following the Federal Government\u2019s Twitter ban. Following the ban, the House had summoned the Minister. At the hearing, the Minister who insisted that the ban of Twitter\u2019s operations [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[364],"class_list":["post-2165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-information-minister-and-the-twitter-ban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2170,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions\/2170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}