ABUJA (Reuters) -Nigeria will soon lift its ban on Twitter after resolving some of its differences with the social media platform, Information Minister Lai Mohammed said on Wednesday.
The Nigerian government suspended Twitter on June 4 after it removed a post from President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish regional secessionists, and some telecoms companies had blocked access to users in Nigeria.
“The ban on Twitter will soon be lifted as we are getting close to reaching full agreement,” Mohammed told reporters after a cabinet meeting. “We have agreed on some areas. Hopefully in the next few days or weeks we will conclude.”
The ban on Twitter had drawn condemnation from the social media platform itself and also from the U.S. government.
It was imposed after Twitter removed on June 2 a post by Buhari in which he made reference to the 1967-70 civil war in a way that the company said violated its “abusive behaviour” policy.
Nigeria’s attorney general initially said those who breached the Twitter ban should be prosecuted, but that was not enforced.
A West African court ruled on June 22 that the Nigerian authorities could not prosecute people for using the service while it considered a suit seeking to overturn the ban.
In practice, many Nigerian users continued to post on Twitter, but government ministries and other public bodies had stopped using it.
(Reporting by Felix Onuah; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Alison Williams and Bernadette Baum)
