As Nigerians seized the occasion of Nigeria’s 61st Independence Anniversary to remember those brutally murdered by military personnel at the Lekki tollgate last year, Twitter has threatened those using the blood-stained Nigerian flag on their profiles, saying it violates its policy.
Although the crackdown by the social media giant had previously been reported, it intensified on Friday, October 1st, as Nigerians commenced a month-long campaign to mark one year since the #EndSARS Protest rocked Nigeria.
The blood-stained flag was used as a band-aid for persons reported to have been hit by the military bullets after soldiers deployed to quell the protest opened fire on protesters; killing at least nine civilians and wounding several others.
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Consequently, Nigerians have since come to adopt the flag as the symbol of the historic protest and vowed to amplify it every year in honour of their fallen comrades.
President Muhammadu Buhari was alleged to have ordered lethal military action against the protesters. Buhari had, in an interview, stated that the protesters wanted to wrestle power from him, hence the military strike.
Meanwhile, reports that several handles receiving warnings from Twitter of rules violation, after uploading the bloodied flag as their display image has emerged, with many Nigerian claiming that the US-based social media giant is taking sides with the Buhari-led government.
In the meantime, the speculation drawn by Nigerians comes in the wake of the conditions announced by Buhari in his Independence Day speech.
They (Nigerian Twitter users) further stated that Twitter executives might have agreed to crack down on opposition voices, as part of efforts to meet some of the conditions set by the Buhari government to lift its June 4, 2021, illegal ban on the social media giant in Nigeria.
