Federal Government has summoned the envoys of the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), Canada, and the European Union (EU) in Nigeria over their recent comments on the suspension of Twitter in the country.
This was disclosed via an invitation to pressmen issued in the early hours of Monday by a member of the Crisis Monitoring and Public Communications Division of the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kimiebi Ebienfa.
It read, “I am directed to inform that following the recent ban on Twitter by the Federal Government and Press Statement issued by some Heads of Diplomatic Missions Accredited to Nigeria on the subject matter, the Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs, His Excellency, Geoffrey Onyeama has invited the affected Ambassadors to a meeting today at 12 noon.
“The venue is Minister’s Conference Room, 8th Floor.
“You are hereby invited to cover the meeting. Thanks for your usual cooperation.”
It would be recalled that Canada, EU, UK, US, and the Republic of Ireland had in a statement on Saturday said the banning systems of expression is not the way forward.
The statement was titled, ‘Joint Statement From The Diplomatic Missions Of Canada, The European Union (Delegation To Nigeria), The Republic Of Ireland, The United Kingdom And The United States Of America’.
Twitter had deleted a controversial civil war post by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Consequently, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, announced the suspension of the microblogging site, citing the “persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”.
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