Popular Nollywood actor, Yemi Solade has been under fire all day on Twitter for supporting the ban on Twitter operations in Nigeria.
Contrary to the wide condemnation of the ban, Solade, said the social media platform deserved to be penalised for “insulting the President of Nigeria.”
The actor said this in an interview with GoldmyneTv at the second edition of Social Media Hangout, tagged “Digital media: Freedom of internet use and the rights of citizens,” which was held in Lagos on Sunday.
Mr. Solade described Twitter’s deletion of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet as “malicious.”
“I think Twitter went too far insulting the president of Nigeria and by extension insulting all of us. Some 200 million people of Nigeria, the most populous black nation on earth. I think about 45 per cent of subscribers more or less are Nigerians who make Twitter (very) tick,” he said.
The movie star also said Twitter’s “white supremacist imperialist tendencies should be curbed sometimes.”
He said when a platform was used to project anarchy, hate comment, and to “foment trouble” then there was a need to regularise such a medium.
According to him, Nigeria has a myriad of problems to contend with, and does not need Twitter compounding them.
“I’m not really a Twitter fan, I do little on Twitter but most times one comes across some very volatile moment, you know the situation of things in this country.
“I will want to align with that school of thought that Twitter wasn’t really helping. Nigeria has so many problems to contend with and Twitter wasn’t really helping the country, most of the posts were far far too negative, you know, hitting the government of Nigeria”, he said.
He described the ban as “the best the president could do” while noting however that the platform would be missed by entrepreneurs who use the platform as a medium to reach their customers.
Nigerian youths have taken the actor up on Twitter, expressing their disappointment in him.
‘Yemi Solade was among the top ten trending topics for most part of Tuesday, garnering over 16,000 tweets by time of filing this report. Most of the tweets were abuses and insults for the actor.
Some tweeps came up with a picture of Solade displaying his All Progressives Party’s membership card and one where he was in a group picture with President Muhammadu Buhari alongside other theatre practitioners.
The tweeps explained that the pictures explained Solade’s stance on the ban issue. One of the tweeps insinuated that Solade was simply hustling for food.
