Pascal Arogorn Ibe
The Nigerian government has opened an official account on Koo, an Indian microblogging platform.
The move comes less than a week after the federal government suspended Twitter operations in Nigeria.
The government had alleged that the microblogging site was being used to undermine “Nigeria’s corporate existence”.
The Koo account, with the handle, “@nigeriagov” and username, “Government of Nigeria”, had over 10,000 followers as of press time.
Aprameya Radhakrishna, Koo founder and CEO, officially confirmed on Saturday that the platform is now available in Nigeria.
Radhakrishna said his team was working on adding Nigeria’s local languages for Koo users in the country.
“Koo is now available in Nigeria. We are thinking of enabling the local language there as well. He further added that they are considering introducing a local Nigerian language into the Koo app,” Radhakrishna said.
“Nigeria is similar to India in terms of language diversity. It has hundreds of regional languages. Koo has a global outlook and will enable micro-blogging in countries that need it the most. We have built a scalable platform, and while we are still enhancing the product, it’s already available for use in multiple countries today.”
Lai Mohammed, minister of information, said on Wednesday the ban on Twitter in Nigeria does not stifle the citizens’ freedom of expression as they still have the options of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other social media platforms.
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