The Socio-Economic Rights And Accountability Project (SERAP) has vowed to seek redress in court should the current administration go ahead with its plot to regulate social media as declared by Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
SERAP stated this in a Wednesday tweet.
Mohammed is currently in the United States to meet with international media organisations and think tanks on the achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration and efforts made so far in tackling insurgency, banditry and all forms of criminality.
During an interaction with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the minister said that there was urgent need to regulate social media after reports circulated on social media that he sneaked out of Nigeria to secretly meet Twitter officials.
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“You and I have been here, have I met with any Twitter official?
“When you talk about fake news and its danger, we need to take it seriously and I am happy that the entire world is now seen what we saw more than two years ago.
“I can assure you that we will not rest until we regulate the social media, otherwise, nobody will survive it,’’ Mohammed said.
Reacting, SERAP said the government has no right to restrict citizens’ access to social media.
The civil society organisation tweeted: “BREAKING: The Minister of Information Mr Lai Mohammed reportedly said today: “We will not rest until we regulate the social media.”
“Well, the government doesn’t have the power to restrict people’s access to social media.
“We’ll see in court if the social media is ever regulated.”
In June, SERAP dragged the Nigerian government before the ECOWAS Court over a plot to prosecute people using Twitter in Nigeria after its operation was suspended in the country.
The court subsequently ruled that the government could not prosecute people for using Twitter in the country.