Hours after FG suspends Twitter, Aisha Buhari deactivates account

Aisha, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, has deactivated her account on Twitter.

She announced a few seconds before midnight that she would deactivate her account.

“I will be deactivating my Twitter account for now. Long live Federal Republic of Nigeria,” she tweeted at 11:59pm on Friday.

Minutes later, the account — which had one million followers as of June 4 — was no longer available on the social media platform.

Aisha’s deactivation of her account comes hours after the federal government announced that it would suspend the operations of Twitter in the country.

Lai Mohammed, minister of information, had announced the “indefinite” suspension of Twitter’s operations in the country earlier on Friday.

According to the minister, the social media platform was engaging in activities that “undermine Nigeria’s existence”.

Although the minister did not state exactly what activities had led to Twitter’s suspension on Friday, the microblogging platform had deleted a post by President Muhammadu Buhari which made reference to the Civil War.

In post on Twitter on Tuesday, the president had condemned the attacks on government facilities in the country, and citing a reference to the civil war experience, threatened to treat those “bent on destroying” Nigeria “through insurrection” in “a language they understand”.

Defending Buhari, the information minister had condemned the deletion of the president’s post and accused Twitter of “double standard”.