Poor media coverage about Nigeria responsible for Twitter’s choice of Ghana- Lai Mohammed

Nigeria’s minister of information, Lai Mohammed, says Nigeria media is to be blamed for Twitter’s choice of Ghana as its headquarters in Africa.

He said the media is more to blame for exaggerating some of the challenges facing the country, adding that such reports about the country was worse during the #EndSARS protest.

Mohammed said, “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,” he said.

Tweeter had earlier announced the decision to set up its Africa head office in Ghana ignoring  Nigeria, due to the country’s “support for free speech and online freedoms.”

It added that Ghana’s recent appointment to host the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) also influenced its decision.

This development had triggered a lot of reactions from Nigerians on social media.

However, in an interview on Thursday, Mohammed expressed his displeasure over the development, which he blamed on Nigerians.

He said, “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,” he said.

“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” He added.