The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has described the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and other countries that criticised the suspension of micro blogging platform, Twitter, as hypocritical.
He faulted their stance as he claimed they did not have the country’s best interest at heart.
The minister said this on NTA’s ‘Good Morning Nigeria’ programme on Friday.
Mohammed said both the EU and the UK were already working on social media regulations and wondered why Nigeria was being accused of stifling free speech.
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He added, “The EU has recommended the same thing and Britain only on Wednesday spoke about a law that would regulate the social media. This is why I say they are being hypocritical. Like I said, I don’t like commenting on issues that have to do with relations with Nigeria and other countries but clearly speaking, they are being less than honest.”
He asked Nigerians not to be deceived by foreign missions condemning the suspension of Twitter.
Mohammed added, “We have seen so many foreign missions come up to condemn the action of Nigeria. Nigerians, please, make a distinction between countries that are trying to protect their economic and commercial interests from those countries that genuinely love you and talking about freedom of speech and don’t forget for one minute that it is because there is a country called Nigeria that there is freedom of speech.”
