Crypto? Ban it. - What About Twitter? Ban It Too, Ban Everything, Ban Them All!

The Nigerian government seems to be fighting a media/propaganda war against all things technological and all things progressive.

The January ban on crypto was just the start of many undesirable things to come for the young teeming tech-savvy population of the country, under an administration that is obviously still stuck in the '80s.
Crypto ban isn't exclusive to Nigeria, I know, but some of the reasons they have given so far for their decisions are laughable.

In defense of their January ban on crypto transactions, the government said that a lot of financial crimes were being carried out in the country with crypto as the conduit. This is rich coming from an administration that has supervised the highest and some of the most brazen looting and misappropriation of funds by any Nigerian government ever and none of which were done through crypto.

The fact is, these countries giving crypto a tough time have seen firsthand the potential and the powers of crypto and for once, they arent 100% in control and it scares the shit out of them.

In Nigeria for example, during the #Endsars protest of October 2020, the government froze the bank account of the coalition of youths they thought were organizing and facilitating the protest. In response, the coalition created and disseminated a BTC and Ethereum wallet and funds were pouring in almost immediately and seamlessly, the coalition continued coordinating.

This left a bitter taste in the government's mouth and ever since, they have been out to stamp out any technological innovation that removes the power from them.

You remember the Twitter Vs Nigerian government debacle that has been going on for 2 weeks now? Yeah, that one is still fresh and is just another clear example of the government being shit scared about innovations that give power back to the people.

So, 2 weeks ago, the President of Nigeria made an inciting comment on Twitter that targeted a particular tribe in the country, a tribe that was the victim of a genocide, that lost approximately 3 million of its indigenes in the 1967 - 1970 Nigerian civil war - the Igbo tribe. The President who was, of course, a top-ranking Nigerian Army Officer during that war threatened to talk to them in a language they'd understand, in case they'd forgotten.

These irresponsible comments unbecoming of a president of a diverse nation such as Nigeria drew the ire of the Igbos particularly and that of every right-thinking Nigerian, and his posts were massively reported as inciting and Twitter rightly took it down.

Again, the Nigerian government was left with egg on its face and it was gonna be hell to pay. A couple of days after the President's post was taken down, it was announced that Twitter was gonna be banned in the country till further notice.

https://www.newtelegraphng.com/twitter-an-agent-of-division-in-nigeria-garba-shehu/

I would say I wasn't surprised about the Twitter ban because the Buhari administration has been looking for a way to stifle the free media - the social media. The proposed Social Media bill was gonna do it but it was kicked against and it stalled, now they had a "justifiable reason" to do it through the backdoor.

https://dailynigerian.com/twitter-liable-endsars/

Since the #Endsars protest, the Nigerian government has become fully aware of the powers that both social media and cryptocurrency have and the kind of influence they can pull. The protest was initiated, coordinated, financed, and sustained for 2 weeks via Social Media and crypto.

For a government that drags its feet when it's time to do the right thing, the swiftness of these bans shows that many of their anti-people policies have been intentional.

It is the 21st century, the world is moving at the speed of light and technology is changing the way things are done and there is nothing the Nigerian government or any government for that matter would do to stop the movement.

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