Nigeria blames Twitter boss for #EndSars losses
Nigeria blames Twitter boss for #EndSars losses
Nigeria blames Twitter boss for #EndSars losses
Nigeria’s government holds Twitter and its CEO Jack Dorsey
indirectly liable for the losses the country suffered during
the EndSars protest, the country’s Information Minister
has told a call-in programme.
Mr Dorsey and the social media firm have not yet
responded to the allegations.
Tens of thousands of Nigerians took to the streets last October
in protests against police brutality.
They became known as the EndSars demonstrations as they
were sparked after a video went viral of a man allegedly being
killed by the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sar).
Information Minister Lai Mohammed alleged Mr Dorsey had
launched a fund for the protests, asking people to donate via Bitcoin.
Twitter had further fuelled the crisis by
launching an EndSars emoji, he alleged.
“If you ask people to donate money via Bitcoin for EndSars
protesters then you are vicariously liable for whatever is the
outcome of the protest,” the News Agency of Nigeria
quotes the minister as saying.
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“We have forgotten that EndSars led to loss of lives, including 37
policemen, six soldiers, 57 civilians while property worth
billions of naira were destroyed.”
He went on to list the property destroyed as:
164 police vehicles
134 police stations burnt
265 private firms looted
243 public properties looted
81 warehouses looted
More than 200 new buses bought by the Lagos State government burnt.
Twitter is in discussions with the government after it was banned
Nigeria on 4 June – this followed its deletion of a tweet by
President Mohammadu Buhari which had breached the site’s rules.
Mr Mohammed reportedly told the Politics Nationwide phone-in
show that he had no apology to offer to those unhappy
over the suspension of Twitter’s operations in the country
