Jega: I don’t support Twitter ban — but social media needs to be sanitised

Attahiru Jega, a former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has condemned the suspension of Twitter in Nigeria.

Jega said this on Friday while speaking at ‘A Conversation on Nigeria’s 22 years of Democracy Rule’, organised by the Blavatnik School of Government.

On June 4, the federal government indefinitely suspended Twitter, the microblogging platform.

The suspension came two days after Twitter took down President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet, which it said violated its rules.

Speaking at the event, Jega said the action by the government is a restriction of the freedom of speech, but added that some persons have been using social media negatively.

“It’s obviously one area in which freedom of expression and speech is being constrained by government action, and one can see the negative implications of that. But one should also not forget that this mayhem of activists on social media has also been growing in strength and have also been negative in the ways in which they use their powers and authority globally,” he said.

“While I condemn and do not support what the Nigerian government has done in just waking up and banning Twitter because it acted against the president, I also think that generally, there is need to globally increasing pay attention to how we can sanitise the role and activities of these social media agencies.”

On how to bring positive change in democracy, the former INEC chairman said Nigerians need to get involved in politics.

He noted that the solution is hard work and focus to get desired change.

“Things have been so bad for so long in our country and the challenges have piled up and the weight is heavy and the roof crumbling down on our heads. And yet, we want quick solutions like restructuring. There is no way the challenges of restructuring in Nigeria can be done in two years,” he said.

“We must have a targeted, focused programme of incremental positive changes in the right direction. Unfortunately, we want things to be addressed very quickly but there is no alternative to really working hard with resilience, focus, and self sacrifice in order to get the change that we desire.”