Economic Summit Group urges Buhari to lift Twitter ban

The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has appealed to the Federal Government to lift Twitter suspension in the interest of the economy.

As indicated in a statement, the NESG disclosed that canceling the suspension of Twitter will foster extensive growth, global effectiveness, and considerably greater economic development in Nigeria.

Economic Summit Group declared that the suspension will affect small businesses and the inflow of foreign investments.

“Despite the inflow of investment into the digital economy, overall Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow into Nigeria is yet to achieve its true potential.

“In the last five years, FDI inflows into Nigeria have remained around $1 billion, according to data from the NBS. This amount is meagre compared with the inflows of countries such as Egypt, South Africa, and Indonesia.

“At a difficult time like this, when Nigeria must grow its economy, plug into the global digital revolution, attract patent international capital and sustained foreign currency inflow to address our foreign exchange challenges, the temporary suspension of Twitter in Nigeria sends out a wrong signal and will stand in the way of our path to rapid economic recovery.

“In addition to the negative effect of the suspension on investments, small businesses that engage in digital trade will be gravely affected, raising further concerns on unemployment, poverty, insecurity, and our economy’s attractiveness,” the statement read.

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed announced Twitter suspension two weeks ago; after the social media platform deleted a tweet by President Buhari it considered “a violation” of its rules.

The Minister had informed citizens campaigning against the ban for economic reasons to migrate to other social media platforms.

Subsequently, he had raised all manners of issues to complicate the ban, although Twitter had officially written to Federal Government to seek dialogue.