By Ayo Kehinde
Following the controversy generated by Pastor Enoch Adeboye, General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, and his Deeper Life counterpart, Pastor William Foluronso Kumuyi, who have continued to use their official twitter handles against the government’s twitter ban, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice has the power to decide the Nigerians to be prosecuted.
Speaking in an interview on BBC Focus on Monday while responding to the disclaimer issued by Adeboye, on Twitter, Mohammed said ; “The attorney-general has made it clear that if anybody who violates the regulation, that such person will be prosecuted and this is not about any person. I think it is the right of the attorney-general to decide who to prosecute.
Adeboye had said the Church’s twitter handle on Sunday, ”The Redeemed Christian Church of God is domiciled in more than 170 Nations & Territories. The tweets here are in accordance to Article 19 of the UN universal declaration of Human Rights.”
The General Superintendent of Deeper Life Bible Church, Pastor Kumuyi, had explained why he would continue to use the microblogging platform, Twitter despite the ban by President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Kumuyi via his Twitter handle @pastorwf_kumuyi on Monday said that the content shared on his Twitter handle is targeted at Deeper Life global audience in more than five continents and over 100 countries.
He tweeted: ”In view of the Twitter ban in Nigeria, please note that the content shared on this handle is targeted at a global audience in more than 5 continents and over 100 Nations and we share the content from any of these locations.”
Some Nigerians see the tweets by the men of God as a violation of the Federal government’s directive, since the Malami had in a statement released on Saturday, June 6, threatening to prosecute anyone found violating the Twitter suspension.
Mohammed also gave reasons why the micro-blogging site was suspended in Nigeria.”The government has suspended indefinitely, the operations of Twitter in Nigeria because of the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence and the government also directed the National Broadcasting Commission to immediately commence the process of licencing all social media operations in Nigeria,” he said.
