Prof. Babatunde Rabiu, Director, Center for Atmospheric Research, National Space Research and Development Agency (CAR-NASRDA), says the ban on Twitter by the Federal Government, presented an opportunity to develop an indigenous replica of the platform.
Rabiu, therefore, called on Information Communication Technology (ICT) experts and app developers to rise to the occasion and create a indigenous replica of the platform, in an interview he granted to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, on Sunday.
Reacting to the ban, Rabiu said although the ban had generated lots of reactions across board, there were benefits in the development.
“This is a great opportunity to make good and cool legitimate business with a social media platform such as this.
“I feel that the ICT sector in Nigeria is ripe enough to produce and offer an equivalent of Twitter services to Nigeria and Africa as a whole.
“If some app developers can come up with something very meaningful within the coming days, it will be a development for the sector and even if Twitter comes back, it will be like a competition.
“Africa is waiting for Nigeria, with one quarter of Africa’s population, and this is where the market is,” Rabiu said.
According to him, we are technologically capable of coping with the situation and to take advantage of it.
He called on Nigerians both at home and in the Diaspora to rise up to the challenge, adding that nationhood was bigger than any individual.
“We should use this opportunity to develop our country socio-economically. When we have our own produced indigenously, the tax will go to the Nigerian government, we will employ people, there may be offices in the geo-political zones or few locations of the country.
“When we develop ours, we will have Nigeria exporting this technology-driven service to other African countries and the global community as a whole.”
NAN recalled that the Federal Government suspended Twitter indefinitely on Friday, June 5, two days after the company removed a Tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari, for alleged violation of the site’s rules.
A statement by the Federal Government accused Twitter of allowing the use of its platform for activities capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.
In the statement, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, also directed the immediate commencement of the licensing of all Over The Top (OTT) social media operations in the country.
