The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, Enoch Adejare Adeboye has described federal government’s ban of Twitter as violation of human rights of Nigerians.
The cleric said this on the heels of meeting held by Foreign Affairs Minister, Onyema with ambassadors from UK, EU, US and UN on Monday.
The minister said after the meeting that the ban could be lifted if the blogging site abide with extant rules, noting that the federal government is taking the missions’ concerns “very seriously”.
Onyema said” We are not saying that Twitter is threatening the country or any such thing; why we have taken this measure is to stop them to be used as platforms for destabilisation and facilitation of criminality or encouragement of criminalities.”
The diplomatic missions had, in a joint statement on Sunday called on the Buhari administration to rescind the decision.
The magazine learnt that the reactions did not go down well with the administration which has faced both local and international backlash over the ban.
Adeboye expressed his feelings on Monday in a tweet he shared on the microblogging platform. The federal government ban took effect on Saturday night.
He said tweeting is in accordance with Article 19 of the UN universal declaration of human rights.
According to him ” the Redeemed Christian Church of God is domiciled in more than 170 Nations & Territories. The tweets here are in accordance to Article 19 of the UN universal declaration of Human Rights,” the cleric tweeted.
The federal government had on Friday announced the “indefinite” suspension of Twitter owing to “the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”.
The development led to the blocking of access to the micro-blogging platform by MTN, Globacom, Airtel, 9mobile, and other networks.
