SaharaReporters learnt that at the heart of Crowee is a former presidential aspirant, Adamu Garba, but he has other forces behind him, to push the agenda.
A number of President Muhammadu Buhari’s loyalists worked hard to ensure the emergence of their new micro-blogging site, Crowee, and also made sure that the administration took a firm decision to suspend social media giant, Twitter, in Nigeria.
SaharaReporters learnt that at the heart of Crowee is a former presidential aspirant, Adamu Garba, but he has other forces behind him, to push the agenda.
“The first group of Buhari’s loyalists were those who were bitter by last October's EndSARS protests which almost tore apart the Federal Government and where the mobilisers and sponsors of the protests made use of Twitter effectively to lead a massive campaign. So, they used Adamu Garba to file a suit against Twitter,” a top source revealed to SaharaReporters.
“The second group of Buhari’s loyalists who support the emergence of Crowee and actually funded it and worked hard to ensure Twitter sank are those who are bitter by the rising campaign of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on Twitter and their international web of collaborators and sponsors. They believed that by banning Twitter, there would be a deep communication gap between IPOB diaspora and IPOB at home,” another source stated.
It will be recalled that Garba, a former presidential aspirant filed a suit against Twitter and Jack Dorsey, its chief executive officer, for supporting the #EndSARS protests but he later withdrew the suit in January 2021.
Garba is the founder of Crowee, a social media and chatting network which appears to be gradually gaining acceptance among northern Nigerians.
He was also the CEO of Crowee before he tentered his resignation in January after calls to boycott the application grew.
Garba has been an addicted critic of Twitter, saying the organisation supports IPOB and separatist agenda against Nigeria.
Last Friday, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had announced the suspension of Twitter in a statement signed by his Special Assistant Segun Adeyemi citing the “persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”.
The Minister said the Federal Government had also directed the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to immediately commence the process of licensing all OTT and social media operations in Nigeria.
The development comes after Twitter deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet where he threatened to treat Nigerians “misbehaving” in “the language they understand”.
Buhari had in a tweet on Tuesday stated that his government will get “harder” on those hell-bent on destroying the country.
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He said those wanting to destroy his government will receive the shock of their lives as his administration will do everything possible to ensure they fail.
The president had said the sponsors and orchestrators of insecurity in the country are doing so because they want his administration to fail.
“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,” he had said.