The Nigerian government has indicated that the temporary ban on Twitter may be lifted soon.
The Minister of Information and Culture minister, Lai Mohammed, said on Wednesday that though talks were still ongoing with Twitter, many agreements had been reached.
Mr Mohammed, who briefed journalists after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja, said the areas still pending include Twitter setting up an office in Nigeria and having a Twitter staff of management cadre as the country representative.
He said though Twitter had agreed to establish an office in Nigeria, the social media platform said it cannot do so until 2022.
Mr Mohammed said he believes the grey areas would be resolved in a few days or weeks.
Nigeria suspended Twitter in the country on June 4 after the social media platform deleted a controversial tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Nigerian government also accused Twitter of supporting protests against the government.
The suspension means millions of Twitter users in Nigeria are denied access to the platform and can only reach it through backdoors such as virtual private networks.
Conditions that must be met
Briefing the journalists, Mr Mohammed stated that although they had a smooth deliberation with Twitter, that did not mean that there was no area of disagreement.
He also said they made some demands which Twitter promised to look into.
“I know that one of the conditions that we set was that Twitter, in line with Nigeria’s Companies and Allied Matters Act, should establish presence in Nigeria with registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC),” the minister said.
“And we think it is the only thing, that if you want to do business in Nigeria, you must register first, a Nigerian company and of course, you must have an address. That is one of the conditions we gave Twitter.
“We also asked that Twitter shall be mandated to employ a designated country representatives. As of today, we are not aware of any Twitter representative in Nigeria, and we say that that representative shall be a staff of Twitter so that he can have access to global management of Twitter.
