First Lady Aisha Buhari has refused to reactivate her Twitter account, one year after Nigeria restored access to the microblogging site and one and half years since quitting the platform in apparent solidarity with the government.
Dateline Nigeria reports that the Nigerian government suspended Twitter on June 5, 2021 after the platform deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari saying it violated its terms.
On the same day, the first lady deactivated her verified Twitter account (@aishambuhari) where she had one million followers. “I will be deactivating my twitter account for now. Long live Federal Republic of Nigeria,” Mrs Buhari tweeted at the time.
A search of the account on Thursday, January 12, 2023 by Dateline Nigeria returns the following message: “This account doesn’t exist.”
The first lady, however, continues to make use of other social media platforms, especially Instagram and Facebook, to publicise some of her activities. Both Intagram and Facebook are owned by Meta.
Trending on twitter in absentia
Dateline Nigeria reports that the wife of the president was recently in the news following the arrest, allegedly on her orders, of a final year student of the Federal University Dutse Aminu Mohammed over a tweet she found offensive.
Aminu had on June 8, 2022 via his Twitter handle (@aminullahie) tweeted in Hausa “Su mama Anchi Kudin Talakawa an koshi,” which many speakers of the language translated to mean “Mama has fed fat on poor people’s money”.
The 24-year-old was subsequently detained, arraigned and remanded in prison before he was eventually freed, after the one charge against him was dropped by the first lady. The case generated controversy which saw the president’s wife trending on twitter for days.
Muhammad Sani Zorro, a Senior Special Assistant to the president on public affairs and strategy in the office of the First Lady, could not be reached for comment.
Buhari resumes tweeting after ban lifted
Our reporter also observed that though Twitter service was restored on January 12, 2022, it took President Buhari nearly four months to resume tweeting.
The president used the occasion of the Eid el-Fitr on May 2, 2022 to return to Twitter. His last tweet before then was on June 1, 2021, some three days before the suspension which lasted seven months.
While announcing the restoration of Twitter service, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, said the decision was taken only after Twitter agreed to meet some conditions, including opening an office in Nigeria.
Dateline Nigeria reports that the Federal Government had while suspending Twitter accused the platform of double standard for deleting President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweets warning youths attacking security agents and burning government property in the South East.
