Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF) and minister of justice will decide whether or not to prosecute Pastor Enoch Adeboye and Pastor William Kumuyi –both popular clerics and others tweeting despite the suspension of Twitter in Nigeria, according to Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture.
Adeboye, in a tweet on Monday, had said his church is present in over 170 countries and tweeting is in accordance with Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Hours later, Kumuyi also tweeted that his church has branches across over 100 countries and five continents hence it can tweet from anywhere in the world..
When asked during an interview on BBC News Africa what the government’s action would be, Mohammed said, “The attorney-general has made it clear that if anybody violates the regulation that such a person will be prosecuted and this is not about any particular person. It is in the realm of the Attorney-General to decide who or who not to prosecute.”
Speaking further, he said, “It is because there is a country called Nigeria that they have rights at all. If the country goes on fire, and there is insecurity everywhere, then, there will be no rights for anybody.”
When confronted by the interviewer that there is already insecurity in Nigeria, the minister said, “Of course, there is.”
“Are we supposed to use Twitter to increase insecurity?” Mohammed asked, adding that agents of destruction have chosen Twitter as a platform to destabilise the corporate existence of Nigeria.
President Muhammadu Buhari administration has been under fire since last Friday for suspending the operations of the microblogging site after Twitter deleted a controversial civil war post by the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
The United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Canada have criticised the Federal Government for infringing on the fundamental human rights of Nigerians.
But Mohammed said there would be no human rights if the country goes on fire.
“It is because there is a country called Nigeria that they have rights at all. If the country goes on fire, and there is insecurity everywhere, then, there will be no rights for anybody,” he said.
