Twitter Deletes Buhari's Threat to Repeat Genocide in Nigeria, Information Minister says "Twitter's Mission in Nigeria is Suspicious"

Twitter has deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet wherein he threatened to treat Nigerians “misbehaving” in “the language they understand”.

This is in response to the agitation movement in the south-eastern region of Nigeria where over 3 million children were starved to death during the civil war in 1967-70. Questions has sinced been raised about the civil war in 1967 with writers, human right activists and international communities raising eyebrows on what seems like genocide in the region.

In the tweet shared on Tuesday, Buhari spoke about the civil war experience and threatened to deal with those “bent on destroying” Nigeria through “insurrection.”

“Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand,” he had said.

The microblogging site deleted the message on Wednesday following public outcry.

“This tweet violated the Twitter rules,” it noted.

Context

Authorities have blamed a banned separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), and what police call its armed wing, the Eastern Security Network.

The IPOB has repeatedly denied involvement.

Buhari posted a series of tweets on Tuesday, the day after towns across the southeast were quiet and businesses shuttered since the IPOB urged people to commemorate the war dead.

Some social media users criticised Buhari's tweet before it was removed, accusing him of targeting Igbo people from the largest ethnic group in the southeast. IPOB is influential in the region and its efforts to revive sentiments over Biafra have prompted a crackdown from security agencies in recent years.

Nigeria's Information Minister Lai Mohammed was dismissive of Twitter's action, saying Twitter's "mission in Nigeria is suspicious" and that Buhari had every right to express dismay at violence by a banned organisation.

“We have a country to rule and we will do so to the best of our ability. Twitter’s mission in Nigeria is very suspect, they have an agenda,” he said.

“The mission of Twitter in Nigeria is very suspicious. Has Twitter deleted the violent tweets that Nnamdi Kanu has been sending? Has it? The same Twitter during the ENDSARS protests that were funding ENDSARS protesters, it was the first to close the account of the former president of the US, Trump.

“And you see when people were burning police stations and killing policemen in Nigeria during ENDSARS, for Twitter, it was about the right to protest. But when a similar thing happened on the Capitol, it became insurrection.”

"Twitter may have its own rules, it's not the universal rule," he told reporters. "If Mr. President anywhere in the world feels very bad and concerned about a situation, he is free to express such views."

Will Buhari lose his twitter account?

It is not immediately clear if the platform will take further action against the president.

He had posted the message reminding those “misbehaving in certain parts of the country”, particularly in the south-east where government infrastructures have been under attack, of the massacre in 1967-1970. The Nigerian president appeared to be the telling the people in the south-east that 1967 is what happens when you don't behave youself.

Many Nigerians tackled him over the statement, citing his reference to the civil war — in which millions of Nigerians mostly the Igbo were killed — as a threat to commit human rights violations.