By Saidu Idris
365Daily – The Federal Government has said Twitter chose Ghana over Nigeria to host its continental headquarters because the Nigerian media and some Nigerians ”de-marketed” the country.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, made this known in an interview on Thursday, April 15, 2021, in Abuja.
He said it was expected that since Nigeria has more Twitter users, about 25 million, compared to Ghana’s 8 million, it would have been chosen as the place for the company’s headquarters but for unpatriotic Nigerians that do not portray the image of the country in positive light.
Mohammed further said the development would serve as a lesson for Nigerians to be patriotic in managing the image of the country.
He stated: “The reasons cited by Twitter for citing the headquarters in Accra, Ghana is that Accra is a champion of democracy and there is rule of law in the country, among other reasons. This is what you get when you de-market your country. The media is more to blame for this which most times exaggerate the challenges in the country.
“At no time was this worse than during the EndSARS protest when Nigerian journalists, both traditional and new media, were trying to outdo themselves in painting Nigeria as a hell where nobody should live. When they all conspired to vilify not just the government but the people of Nigeria.
“We are not saying that you should not criticise the country but be fair and patriotic. When you destroy your own house, where are you going to live? You can imagine the kind of job opportunities that citing that headquarters in Nigeria would have generated, the kind of visibility it would have given Nigeria but we destroyed it.
”It is what the insiders say about their country that the outsider will use to judge and condemn the country’’.
The Minister said he was pleased with the United States report which vindicated the Nigerian government by stating that no single life was lost at the Lekki Toll Gate as opposed to what the majority of the media reported.
(Written with agency report)