Pascal Oparada
It was a digital ethnic war on Monday as Nigerians battled to either destroy or save what has been hailed as Africa’s answer to Netflix, Irokotv owned by Jason Njoku.
Penultimate week, the social media app, Crowee App, owned by Adamu Garba, a pro-government supporter, was deleted from Google Play Store for infractions, intellectual property theft, and poor reviews.
At the height of the Twitter ban, Nigerians came hard on Garba for supporting what many called a clampdown on freedom of expression by the Nigerian government.
Garba had touted his Crowwe App as an alternative to Twitter and asked Nigerians to ditch the microblogging site for meddling in the affairs of the country.
Nigerians began to report his Crowwe App to Google.
The reviews were scathing and caused Google to delete the app from its store.
Garba had said he asked Google to pull the app for an upgrade.
Also, at the height of the debacle, Garba also lost his Instagram account. He said he lost it because people reported him to Instagram.
Search for his account on the photo-sharing app revealed that his account does not exist.
The onslaught against Garba angered northern Nigerians who said he was targeted because he is from the north.
In apparent retaliation, many northern youths were mobilised to report and flag the Iroko TV application, Peoples Gazette learned.
North Media Writers, in a statement written to Datti Asalafiy, a radical Islamic news platform called on the northern youths to report the application owned by Jason Njoku, a southerner from the Igbo tribe.
Other applications listed for a takedown were Biafra World Radio and SoftTalk Messenger owned by IPOB and Simple Azenabor respectively.
The statement shared on Daily News Hausa’s Facebook page asked its readers to respond on behalf of a “young and smart man from the North” who appeared on “Channels TV to support a Twitter ban” in Nigeria but was “insulted” by many “IPOB people.”
“People of the North need to respond, show IPOB we are more effective than them, on this, we have investigated some big apps of IPOB members that are in Play Store, we want them to go and report them until Google has deleted the app,” it added.
Observations by The Nigerian Xpress show that the youth then took to Play Store to criticize the Iroko TV application and called for its removal.
“This app is very bad, never done anything for me since I downloaded,” one of the reviews submitted last Friday by Auwalu Adamu read.
Similarly, Mustapha Muntari on the same day described it as “the worst app I have ever seen, always start and stop, crashing when you are about to use it, I detected a lot bugs, and the app makes my phone to misbehave. Above all the owner is using the app to cause insecurity in Nigeria.
I recommend this app to be removed from the play store because everything about it is a calamity.”
Another northerner identified as Minshawi Umar said: “Stupid app.
It will be better google takes it down because it promotes sexual content.”
The application, which provides paid-for Nigerian films on-demand, however, survived the campaign after many other users, predominantly from southern Nigeria responded in solidarity by giving it good reviews.
The Gazette observed that Iroko TV’s average review ratings climbed from the previous three to four points, an indication that it performed better than it was before the campaign to pull it down was initiated.
In his statement confirming the northern youth campaign, the CEO, Iroko TV, Jason Njoku said “The last few days has renewed my faith in Nigeria.
I know the support wasn’t just about @irokotv but more broadly about self-determination, press freedoms & a collective yearning for to be a great secure & happy nation.
North/South I truly believe we all want that #KeepitOn”.
