Pascal Oparada
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has broken his Twitter silence more than a week after it was banned in Nigeria.
Atiku’s last message was on June 4 when Buhari’s government banned the microblogging site.
“Hopefully, this isn’t my last tweet. #smile,” he had tweeted.
“On this Democracy Day, let us remember the labours of our heroes past. #DemocracyDay,” Atiku tweeted on Saturday, breaking his weeklong silence on the social media site.
He had since been using Facebook to pass his messages across to his followers.
Nigerians have been urging the former presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) to stand on the side of the people and call the bluff of the government which wants to gag freedom of expression in the country.
His latest tweet has attracted mixed reactions.
“We the youth will never forget your silence and your role in bringing this government in power. We Dey, wait for you for 2023!!!,” someone told him.
Another said he was taking advantage of the ongoing June 12 protest in order to curry the favour of the Nigerian youths.
“After slumbering since the ban, you’ve seen another wave you can ride on for some form of popularity. I didn’t read what you tweeted. I will, after my comment. But you hiding away after the announcement of a ban is barely what can be called opposition,” Fujoe said.
@Juwex said Atiku broke his silence after it emerged the government would not be going through with the prosecution of users of the social media site.
“Guys he has finally showed up. Is it because Malami said he won’t arrest us again? Anyways we have it on record that it took people calling u out for days to finally show up,” Juwex said.
Atiku and his children have been on Twitter hiatus after the government said it would prosecute users of the site.
Twitter was banned by the Buhari government after his tweet was deleted for violating Twitter rules.
