Twitter has deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari threatening to deal with ‘people’ who failed to learn from the exprience of the civil war in Nigeria between 1967-1970.
Buhari posted the tweet after a meeting on Tuesday with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, who briefed him at the the Aso Rock, of attacks on INEC offices, especially in the South-East.
In the tweet, Buhari vowed to treat Nigerians still misbehaving because they did not know the experience of the civil war in the language they would understand.
“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,” Buhari had said.
The statement attracted the condemnation of Nigerians, who believe it was a subtle mockery of the Igbo tribe, which lost about three million people, mostly children and civilians during the war.
Popular news website, Peoples Gazzette, revealed that Twitter had to delete the tweet after several users reported the President’s Twitter account.
Checks on the president’s official account revealed that the tweet had been taken down.
On the reason for its action, Twitter explained that the tweet violated its rules.
“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.”