The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed says Twitter chose Ghana as
the headquarters for its African operations, due to the unpatriotism of
Nigerians.
Speaking to newsmen in Abuja, Mr Mohammed said the tech giants chose
Accra over Nigeria because the nation’s West African neighbours are
champions of democracy and abide by the rule of law.
“The reasons cited by Twitter for citing the headquarters in Accra,
Ghana is that Accra is a champion of democracy and there is rule of law
in the country, among other reasons. This is what you get when you
de-market your country,” the minister stated.
He further blamed the media for championing the course of devaluing
Nigeria by fervently putting out negative reports and painting the
country as a hell on earth.
“The media is more to blame for this which most times exaggerate the
challenges in the country.
“At no time was this worse than during the #EndSARS protest when
Nigerian journalists both traditional and new media were trying to outdo
themselves in painting Nigeria as a hell where nobody should live.
“When they all conspired to vilify not just the government but the
people of Nigeria. We are not saying that you should not criticise the
country but be fair and patriotic. When you destroy your own house,
where are you going to live?
“You can imagine the kind of job opportunities that citing that
headquarters in Nigeria would have generated, the kind of visibility it
would have given Nigeria but we destroyed it. It is what the insiders
say about their country that the outsider will use to judge and condemn
the country.”
The minister argued that the natural expectation is that Nigeria with a
25 million Twitter user population should have been the hub of twitter
business in Africa, as against ghana with only eight million Twitter
users.
He urged Nigerians to be more patriotic, stressing that the continuous
push to put the nation in a bad light has now cost a great opportunity
that would have benefitted the youths and the nation at large.