Nigeria has suffered a loss of N24.72bn ($60.14m) in 10 days due to the Ministry of Information and Culture’s Twitter ban.
NetBlocks Cost of Shutdown Tool, estimates that since June 5 when the ban took effect, Nigeria loses N102.9m ($250,600) per hour.
Director-General of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines, and Agriculture, Ayoola Olukanni, while speaking on the impact of the ban, said Communication is key to sales and marketing in the digital age.
He said, “It will therefore, most likely negatively impact the IT sector of the economy which is already facing several other challenges.
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“While it may be considered that there are alternative social media platforms, the abrupt nature of the suspension would mean a loss of existing contacts and a cost of migration.
“We must of course also not and cannot, discountenance the national security dimension of the misuse of social media and micro-blogging platforms to inspire violence outside its use to conduct Business.”
Twitter has already made moves to restore its services in the country. It reached out to the government and made a tweet about it.
The company said, “Today marks one week since Twitter was blocked in Nigeria. We have informed the Nigerian government that we are ready to meet for an open discussion to address mutual concerns and see the service restored.
“We remain advocates for the free and Open Internet everywhere.”
