Nigerian economy loses N247.8bn over Twitter ban
On this day, September 13, makes it 100 days since the federal government suspended the use of one of the World’s renowned micro-blogging platforms, identified as Twitter in Nigerian, this has caused the West African country’s economy to lose about N247.61 billion, so far.
Creekvibes News Magazine recalls that on June 5, the Federal Government through the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) suspended Twitter a few days after it deleted a post made by President Muhammadu Buhari, which was considered to be offensive to the Igbo tribe.
Since the ban, the Nigerian economy has lost N103.17 million ($250,600) every hour, according to NetBlocks Cost of Shutdown Tool.
It has been 2,400 hours since the FG banned Twitter which puts the total amount lost at a N247.8billion ($601,439,044) using the exchange rate of N412/$.
In a bid to bypass the ban, the use of Virtual Private Networks has risen with many Nigerians almost forgetting that a restriction currently exists.
Recently, the Presidency through the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said it was close to an agreement with Twitter and would soon lift the ban.
A firm, ExpressVPN had said that it recorded an increase of over 200 percent in web traffic from Nigeria since the Federal Government banned Twitter.
However, the Nigeran government is not the only country that has banned its citizens from accessing the microblogging platform; governments of China, Iran, and North Korea have also done so.
