As Nigerian ISPs comply with government's Twitter ban blocking the service, the country's AG threatens prosecution of those trying to circumvent the ban
Nigeria's attorney general Abubakar Malami Saturday said the country will prosecute those who flout the government order to deactivate operations …
The Guardian Nigeria NewsDennis Erezi
Context & Ripple Effects
Nigeria moved from announcing a Twitter block after the platform removed posts by President Buhari to enforcing it through ISPs; the attorney general’s prosecution threat extends that action from network-level compliance to individual users. The later lifting of the suspension following agreements with Twitter shows the dispute was also becoming a negotiation over the platform’s local commitments.
Nigerian ISPs must deactivate access to Twitter under the government order, immediately interrupting the service for users in the country.
Abubakar Malami’s threat makes attempts to bypass the block a potential enforcement target, raising the personal risk for users seeking access.
Second-order effects
The prosecution warning shifts enforcement beyond ISPs: access-circumvention tools become more consequential because their users, rather than only network operators, are named as potential targets.
Twitter faces pressure to resolve the dispute through government-facing commitments, a path reflected in the later agreement tied to restoring service.
Third-order effects
If Nigeria continues to pair network blocks with conditions on platforms, market access will increasingly depend on local legal and operational commitments rather than service availability alone.
The pattern points toward telecommunications networks becoming a reusable enforcement channel for online-platform policy, later echoed by reported restrictions on crypto exchanges.
The trend: Nigeria’s approach is part of a shift toward using ISP-level controls and local-compliance demands to govern access to global internet platforms.
Unreal. #Nigeria Gov bans Twitter indefinitely after its President Buhari's tweet gets deleted. A nation of 200 million loses access to social platform because one man is offended: https://www.cnn.com/...
And now Bouhari Gov is ordering prosecution of Nigerians who Tweet. An order that violates #Nigeria's constitution. Meanwhile unemployment in country is at 33%, police brutality rampant and many are using VPNs: https://www.cnn.com/...
I hope @CNN gave the spokesman of @MalamiSan the American First Law of Holes which says: “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging”. The entire @NigeriaGov starting from @NGRPresident @MBuhari to the spokesman that said this really must breathe in and breathe out. Quickly.✍🏾 …
Nigeria's legal system, which is yet to convict a single suspect for the kidnapping of almost 1000 schoolchildren since December, has a new priority... People on Twitter. https://twitter.com/...
People using Twitter will be brought before the law by people using Twitter to see which people are using Twitter. Make it make sense. https://twitter.com/...
#Nigeria has officially suspended Twitter after Buhari's controversial tweet was taken down. But Buhari is so incompetent that, fortunately, Nigerians can still access Twitter. Nigeria ranks 102 out of 104 countries on @ChandlerINST's Good Governance index.https://www.reuters.com…
Access to Twitter through Nigeria's main phone providers has been blocked, according to reports from Lagos and the capital, Abuja. This comes after the government said it was suspending Twitter operations in the country “indefinitely”. https://www.bbc.com/...
Good reminder that while we definitely need to be talking about the power that social media platforms have to amplify or silence people, the biggest threat to free expression globally remains government censorship backed by state violence https://twitter.com/...