Blame Buhari for twitter’s choice of Ghana as African HQ-PDP

By Gbade Ogunwale, Abuja

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has lamented the choice of Ghana by microblogging and networking service, Twitter for the siting of its Africa’s headquarters.

Twitter had announced on Monday that its choice of Ghanian against Nigeria was informed by the fact that Ghana has earned a reputation as “champion of democracy” and demonstrated tolerance for press freedom in Africa.

The decision was taken even though as the organisation said it still recognised Nigeria as its biggest market hub on the African continent.

Apparently worried by the harsh reality of Twitter’s decision, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Wednesday blamed the All Progressives Congress (APC) led administration at the centre for Nigeria’s loss to Ghana.

In a statement by the spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party accused the APC of misrule, saying Twitter’s preference for Ghana over Nigeria was occasioned by inconsistent economic policies, obnoxious suppression of free speech, stifling of online freedom and open internet by the administration.

“This is in addition to infrastructural decay, massive corruption and manifest failure of the Buhari Presidency and the APC to address the escalated insecurity brought upon our nation by their incompetent watch.

Read Also: Why we chose Ghana over Nigeria for Africa office, by twitter

“Indeed the decision by Twitter to bye-pass Nigeria to locate its African operational base in Ghana is another sad commentary of how our nation, which was hitherto a global investment hub under the PDP, has now been so degraded in global economic competitiveness under the APC.

“Nigerians were heavily despaired on Monday when the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, announced that his company will be setting up its headquarters on the continent in Ghana despite Nigeria’s domineering twitter traffic in the sub region”, the PDP said.

The main opposition party argued that with an estimated 39.6 million twitter subscribers in Nigeria, which is bigger than the population of Ghana, Nigeria ought to be the destination, but for the anti-people policies of the APC administration.

Continuing, the PDP said: “It is sad that our nation has continued to lose huge foreign direct investments, which would have brought in more economic opportunities, especially for our youths, just because the Buhari Presidency and the APC lack the capacity to deliver on good governance.

“The preference by Twitter for Ghana over Nigeria has further demonstrated that the Buhari administration’s claims on ease of doing business in Nigeria are mere media hypes.

“Moreover, if President Buhari and the APC have the interest of the struggling youth demography of our nation at heart, they ought to have taken the necessary proactive steps to ensure that Twitter brought this huge investment to Nigeria, particularly given that we have the highest number of Twitter users on the continent.

“It is indeed disturbing that the Buhari administration is taking no decisive steps to address the worsening situation in our country, which has become the world poverty capital under their watch.

“The incompetence, insensitivity, corruption and laid-back attitude of the Buhari administration have continued to bring woes to our nation with an escalated 33% unemployment rate, closure of over 40 million hitherto vibrant businesses with millions of families now unable to afford the basic necessities of life.

“It is painful that despite our national potentials, President Buhari administration has not shown the required commitment of engaging foreign investors and captains of industries to attract investments as being done by Presidents of other countries.”