By Adesuwa Tsan
365Daily – The All Progressives Congress (APC) has declared that Nigeria remains Africa’s biggest economy and top investment destination despite Twitter’s decision to cite its African operations in Ghana.
It said the decision or rationale of private concerns such as Twitter on where to cite their operations are their exclusive preserve and therefore, a non issue.
This was contained in a statement issued by the National Secretary of APC’s Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), Sen. John James Akpanudoedehe, on Thursday, April 15, 2021.
The party was responding to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which had described the decision of Twitter to site its African office in Ghana as a missed “business prospect”.
It said the PDP does ”not mean well for the country and should definitely not be considered as a governance option”, adding that President Buhari’s “misrule” as alleged by the PDP, ”did not stop multinational technology companies, Facebook and Google from opening offices in Nigeria.
”Neither did it stop the world’s largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev and multinational food manufacturing giants, Kellogg’s from establishing their multi-billion Naira brewery and factory in Nigeria.”
It continued: ”Despite uncertainties over the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nigeria earned $2.6billion of the global volume of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), surpassing major competitor South Africa ($2.5b), according to the latest 2020 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Investment Trends Monitor.
”Nigeria’s current status as Africa’s largest economy was achieved under the President Buhari-led APC administration and our industrious citizens are the ultimate beneficiaries.
”Nigeria is doing a lot through the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) which was set up by this administration to remove bureaucratic constraints to doing business in Nigeria and the ongoing implementation of Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP). Nigeria is on the right trajectory and the PDP cannot wish away these solid achievements.”
The APC urged Twitter and other frontline social media platforms to curb fake news, disinformation and hate speech among its users.
It highlighted the proactive roles played by social media operators in checking fake news and divisive rhetoric during the last presidential election in the United States, which it said was a solid pointer to how proper social media usage ultimately benefits society.
”We expect no less in Nigeria from social media operators, the statement said.