“We must not confuse Press freedom with irresponsibility. Any platform that promotes war is not a responsible platform. How can you stay in your own country and allow your platform be used to forment war in our own county and all along be making money? There are very few countries in the world today that have a freer media than Nigeria.
This is why it’s painful, the reaction of most foreign countries to our suspension of Twitter. They saw it from the prism of stifling press freedom. Not in the least. We have a very very free press. We have no intention of stifling press freedom. However, we will do anything possible to keep our country one.
“Nigerians should be a bit more patriotic, they should please not because they hate a particular administration or a particular person not see the rationale for a particular policy of Government. In this particular case of suspending the operation of Twitter is done basically to ensure that no platform encourages war in Nigeria”
“our appeal to Nigerians is that they should understand where we are coming from. We have no intention whatsoever to stiffen anybody’s freedom, we have no intention to cut off the source of livelihood of anybody but if the platform through which you make your money is going to endanger the corporate existence of Nigeria, I think we have the responsibility to the bigger country to ensure that such platforms are reined in. They can come back, we can talk and there will be dos and don’ts.
You can’t come to our country and dictate how you are going to operate. You must operate according to the laws of our country.”
-HMIC, Alh. Lai Mohammed on Radio Nigeria’s program ‘Politics Nationwide’
