Social networking platform, Twitter, stopped working for thousands of users around the world for about two hours on Wednesday.
The social network had reportedly suffered another outage, and this is not the first time it has happened.
An outage-tracking site DownDetector reported the issues at 10:00 am but they seemed to be resolved by noon.
On Monday, Twitter reportedly laid off about 200 staff members to join previously laid-off ones.
Despite the outage, users were still able to tweet as normal although their tweets were not reaching their target audience.
This led to the trending of hashtags “#TwitterDown” and “#Welcome To Twitter” on the platform.
While all these were ongoing, it was a different story for Nigerians as they fear they may be facing another ban.
President-Elect And The Electoral Umpire
On February 25, 2023, Nigerians voted to elect a new president as the tenure of the current president comes to an end.
In the early hours of Wednesday, the results were announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was declared president-elect amid controversies.
Have You Read: Tinubu: ‘Bring Evidence Of Manipulation’– Buhari Tells Candidates
However, many young people seem to not agree with the declaration of the electoral umpire and have taken to Twitter to express their disagreement.
This is why when they were unable to access the platform they thought they had been banned again from the platform as President Muhammadu Buhari had done in 2021.
The day Tinubu won election is the day Twitter is down. Is this deliberate? Are they trying to stifle our voices?
— Solomon Buchi (@Solomon_Buchi) March 1, 2023
The Twitter Ban
On June 5, 2021, the Nigerian government placed a ban on Twitter usage in Nigeria, giving only a vague reason.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, claimed Twitter was banned due to the “persistent use of the platform for activities that were capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”.
Before the ban, Twitter had been a major vehicle of communication between the government and the people.
The nationwide #EndSARS protest, a call for an end to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, started from Twitter before the protesters hit the streets in peaceful protests.
Nigerians that could not do without the platform found ways to bypass the ban until it was eventually lifted on January 13, 2022.
Still, Nigerians live in fear that they could one day wake up to being banned from the platform and they would have to return to 2021.
