The Twitter handle of Nigeria’s First lady, Aisha Buhari, has been deactivated. This comes hours after the government of her husband, President Muhammadu Buhari, announced the suspension of the micro-blogging site’s operations in the country.
“I will be deactivating my Twitter account for now. Long live Federal Republic of Nigeria,” she tweeted at 11:59pm on Friday.
Minutes later, the account, which had over one million followers as of June 4, was no longer available on the social media platform.
However, the account of her husband, @MBuhari, was still active as of the time of filing this report,
Mrs Buhari, who is known for her fierce criticisms of her husband’s government, had in the past made some of her dissatisfaction known via Twitter.
Consequently, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who had accused Twitter of double standards, announced the suspension of the microblogging site on Friday, citing the “persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”.
However, checks by our correspondent showed that Twitter is still up in Nigeria as of the time of filing this report as users still have access to the platform. The minister’s statement was also silent on the time that the ban would be enforced.
