Malami deactivates Twitter account — did he flout the ban?

Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice, has deactivated his Twitter account.

The deactivation of Malami’s account comes days after the federal government issued a directive suspending the operations of the social media platform in Nigeria.

On June 4, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, had announced the “indefinite” suspension of Twitter’s operations in the country.

According to the minister, the social media platform was engaging in activities that “undermine Nigeria’s existence”.

Aisha, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, had deactivated her Twitter account a few hours after the announcement was made.

Malami had, on Friday, ordered the prosecution of anyone who violated the ban.

But many Nigerians have continued to access the microblogging site using the virtual personal network (VPN).

In a message via his Facebook page on Tuesday, Malami posted a photo showing that his Twitter account has been deactivated.

“My Twitter account has been deactivated,” the caption reads.

But the question is if the minister flouted the ban by deactivating his account, considering that the platform isn’t currently accessible to persons with Nigerian locations.

Also, the statement on prosecution of Twitter ban violators doesn’t specify details of what constitutes an offence — logging in to the account or tweeting from Nigeria.

There is also no way to tell at this time if Malami’s account was logged in to from Nigeria.

Meanwhile, many government officials have stopped using the platform since Friday, but most are yet to deactivate their accounts, including Garba Shehu and Femi Adesina, presidential spokesmen.