Twitter and tweeters

 Microblogging platform, Twitter, is one irreverent virtual potentate! It holds supra-territorial sway over the global space for free conversation and levels out the field of discussion with no regard to subscribers’ offices or social-political and economic statuses. On its platform, everyone is an equal player. And in exercising its moderating powers, it does not cringe from pulling the rug from under the powerful viewed to have crossed the line by deleting their posts or altogether tossing their accounts. On Twitter, you get the true feel of verbal democracy. But since unbridled freedom could atimes get injurious to communal health, Twitter steps in now and then to curtail its own very essence, namely free speech. It is a tight-rope walk between responsibility and self-contradiction.

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari fell on the wrong side of Twitter last week when he – actually, it could be aides operating his handle – made a post alluding to the Nigerian civil war and threatening to teach troublemakers a brutal lesson. Against the backdrop of serial attacks on public infrastructure, electoral assets, security formations and their personnel as well as individual personalities – a trend most pronounced in the Southeast zone of this country – the President posted a tweet, Tuesday, on his verified @mbuhari handle saying: “Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Biafran war.” Referencing his role as a brigade major during the bitter 1967-70 war, he added: “Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.”

Those comments were from a speech Buhari made when Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, visited him in Aso Rock over recurrent arson attacks on the commission’s offices, among other criminalities suspected to be perpetrated by secessionist agitators under the banner of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and its armed wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN). IPOB has repeatedly denied involvement in those attacks, though. During the meeting with Yakubu, the President apparently had the separatists in view as he said: “I think we have given them enough latitude. They have made their case, they just want to destroy the country. Whoever wanted diversion or destruction of the system at this point, I think will soon have the shock of their lives.” This was nearly his harshest comment on the worsening spate of insecurity across the country in which people are being killed, raped and kidnapped on daily basis and public infrastructure razed down.

The post by Buhari was deleted by Twitter on Wednesday and his account suspended for 12 hours, with the big-tech citing violation of its ‘abusive behaviour’ policy. But that move may have resulted more from the Nigerian leader losing a contest of persuasion to separatists and those who hold him inveterately provincial in disposition whereas he presides over a multi-ethnic nationhood, than from the inherent construct of the tweet. Before Twitter wielded the big stick, some users had red-flagged Buhari’s post, claiming it expressed ‘intentions of self-harm or suicide’ prohibited in the platform’s usage policy and tended to incite violence in the predominantly Igbo-speaking Southeast. As it seems, Twitter was accordingly persuaded and acted at their behest.

You would find foregoing deconstruction framing government’s reaction when it later accused Twitter of taking sides. Information and Culture Minister Lai Mohammed wondered why Tweeter would object to comments by President Buhari on national issues but would ignore provocative postings by IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu on its site. He said: “The mission of Twitter in Nigeria is very suspect. Has Twitter deleted the violent tweets that Nnamdi Kanu has been sending? Has it? The same Twitter during EndSARS protests promoted tweets trying to raise funds for the EndSARS  protesters. Meanwhile it was the first to close the account of former United States President Donald Trump. When people were burning police stations and killing policemen in Nigeria during #EndSARS, for Twitter it was about the right to protest; but when a similar thing happened at the (US) Capitol, it became insurrection.” Government eventually proceeded to indefinitely suspend Twitter operations in Nigeria and order commencement of licensing of all OTT and social media operations in the country.

“President Buhari was un-presidential by referencing the civil war in threatening people in a section of this country that bore the brunt of that war”

On the face of it, there is a point in Mohammed’s argument that Kanu has posted highly incendiary tweets without being restrained by Twitter. Talking about abusive behaviour: he has called Nigeria a zoo and “a country of congenital liars and thieves” inevitably doomed to destruction, and he labelled the President a rapist and cannibal. And talking about incitement: he said every police and army personnel deployed to the region he designates as Biafra should be regarded as an enemy, and he once mandated people of the region to effect citizens’ arrest of Imo State Governor Hope Uzodinma wherever he was seen. All these were aired on Twitter and the posts weren’t taken down. With the fanatical following Kanu commands among a sizeable portion of the Southeast citizenry, you can’t exactly say he was just blowing hot air. By being swift to delete Buhari’s tweet whereas far more inflammatory tweets have been condoned elsewhere raises the question of prejudice and duplicity of standard on the part of Twitter.

But let’s be clear, that is on surface value. There is arguably more that renders the President’s tweet misbegotten and inadmissible, thus making Twitter’s axe a deserved comeuppance. For one, there is the imprimatur of office attending whatever Buhari says like none other – neither Kanu nor anyone else in Nigeria even faintly fits as comparison here – thereby imposing on him the responsibility for far greater restraint in code selection. Presidential communication in all decent societies is never by glib talk but by measured grace of elocution, which was why the American experience to the contrary under ex-President Trump was such a nightmare both for that country and the entire world community. To be blunt: President Buhari was un-presidential by referencing the civil war in threatening people in a section of this country that bore the brunt of that devastating war; and that was even more so as he is widely suspected of chronic provinciality and perceived dose of animus for same region. It could be argued, of course, that he wasn’t particular about the Southeast in his comment but rather about criminal actors across the entire country. But choosing an occasion where the challenge in focus was the recurrent attacks on electoral facilities experienced in the Southeast to make the comment evidenced poor and inflammatory code selection, which Twitter was on good ground objecting to considering the force of imprimatur.

Now, the blind lunge banning Twitter has only compounded the matter. Really, what does Twitter stand to lose? Not much! What does Nigeria stand to lose? Considerably more! Because not only would citizen economy running on that platform be derailed, with some adverse implications for the national economy, government has embittered citizens whose right to free speech has been collaterally curtailed, thereby deepening the faultlines in the polity. You can bet many will shortly circumvent Twitter ban to access and transact information that could be far more virulent than what Twitter permits. In any event, Twitter ban in the 21st Century does not exactly put a shine on Nigeria’s global image. 

Meanwhile, detestable as it was, there is a sense in which Twitter’s deletion of the war tweet serves this country well. Separatist agitation is one of the multiple challenges of insecurity besetting our nationhood, and it seems fairly obvious this isn’t going to be resolved by presidential fiats or threats but by encouragement of parties involved to dialogue. The tone of national conversation has been escalating, such that even the reputably moderate Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) lately issued a travel advisory asking northerners to stay away from the Southeast unless utterly compelled otherwise. The President’s war comment close after ACF’s advisory further heightened the tension. Ideally, national conversation should now be tailored at deescalating tension and promoting dialogue, and there is no one better located to lead this trend than Buhari. The presidential tweet that was deleted failed that test, and the big-tech’s sanction may be its way of guiding our nationhood back on a saner path.