The Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government has officially taken its request to the Federal House of Representative, seeking for the power to regulate the growing usage of social media in the country. ayokinews.com reports
This was made known in a submission made during a public hearing on the bill to amend the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission Act by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
Mr. Lai Mohammed noted that the new broadcasting bill is to include the regulation of all online and internet broadcasting entities in section two (C) of the bill.
“I want to add that internet broadcasting and all online media should be included in the bill”.
The new bill when passed into law, would enable the Nigerian Federal Government to monitor every online activity of social media users and also the social media companies. The social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc, would now have to seek operation approval officially from the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).
This is coming barely weeks after the Nigerian Government banned the usage of popular micro blogging platform (Twitter) following the deletion of a purported racial and genocidal tweet made by the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari.
