Twitter gives Buhari the Donald Trump treatment, deletes President’s threatening tweet to ‘IPOB’

Twitter has deleted a tweet made by President Muhammadu Buhari threatening to deal with ‘people’ who didn’t learn from the Civil War experience.

The President had boasted about the role he played alongside other Nigerian military officers in the Nigerian Civil War of 1966-70.

The president tweeted:

“Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War. Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand,”.

The tweet did not go down well with a section of Nigerians who believe it was a subtle jibe at the Igbo Tribe.

Many condemned the tone of the message which referenced the 1967 civil war, during which over three million Igbo civilians were killed, many of them rounded up and shot at close range or starved to death.

Many Nigerians went ahead to make solidarity videos as well as report the tweet.

Twitter explained that President Buhari’s tweet violated its rules in their Tweet level enforcement options.

“Our current misleading information policies cover: synthetic and manipulated media, COVID-19, and civic integrity. If we determine a Tweet contains misleading or disputed information per our policies that could lead to harm, we may add a label to the content to provide context and additional information.”

“When we determine that a Tweet violated the Twitter Rules, we require the violator to remove it before they can Tweet again. We send an email notification to the violator identifying the Tweet(s) in violation and which policies have been violated.”