62 days Twitter ban: Costs Nigerian economy N153.43bn
The decision by President Muhammadu Buhari’s government to suspend Nigerians from accessing one of the social media platforms, Twitter has so far cos business in the West African country at least N153.43bn.
The ban was announced on June 5, 2021 after the San Francisco-based digital company deleted President Buhari’s tweets.
Today, August 8 marks 1,488 hours (62 days) since the ban, and in that time period, according to Netblocks Cost of Shutdown Tools, which employs the Free Digital App GDP effect technique, Nigeria has lost at least N103.1 million per hour, or $250,600 per day (exchange rate of N410.75/$).
Although the Buhari administration has maintained that the ban was necessary owing to the platform’s use for actions that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.
The NetBlocks Cost of Shutdown Tool estimates the economic impact of internet disruption, mobile data blackout, or app restriction in a nation using indicators from the World Bank, International Telecommunication Union, Eurostat, and U.S. Census.
While Nigerians have migrated to the use of Virtual Private Networks to access the micro-blogging sites, the level of traffic and engagements have significantly decreased.
According to a report by Statista, Nigeria has about 33 million active social media users, with about 26 percent on Twitter.
