The Nigerian government has lifted its ban on Twitter operations after declaring a crackdown on the social media giant for more than six months.
The suspension was lifted upon Twitter’s agreement to some of the terms and conditions the Nigerian government had stipulated.
The director-general of Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, who is also in charge as chairman of the Technical Committee Nigeria-Twitter Engagement, confirmed that Twitter has bowed to the demands of Nigeria’s public policy.
Abdullahi said the approval was given following a memo written by the country’s minister of communications and digital economy to the President, Muhammadu Buhari.
Twitter has agreed to set a legal entity in Nigeria during the first quarter of 2022, Abdullahi also said.
The establishment of Twitter’s legal entity is one of the three requests, out of ten, Nigeria said Twitter had failed to meet to reinstate the company’s operations in the country months after the ban.
In addition to setting up a local office or a legal entity in the country, the other unanswered requests were paying taxes locally and cooperating with the Nigerian government to regulate content and harmful tweets.
According to the statement released by the government, Twitter will also appoint a “designated country representative” to hold talks with the Nigerian government when required.
The statement also has it that Twitter has agreed to comply with applicable tax obligations on its operations under Nigerian law.
“Twitter has agreed to enrol Nigeria in its Partner Support and Law Enforcement Portals,” the statement read.
The portals will serve as a medium for Twitter staff and Nigeria to manage prohibited content that violates Twitter community rules and Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies to present a report if Twitter goes against Nigerian laws.
In June, Nigeria suspended Twitter after the company deleted a controversial post made by the Nigerian president threatening to punish regional secessionists.