Nigeria’s immediate past Senate
President, Bukola Saraki, has come under online attacks after being accused of
taking ownership of a Twitter handle belonging to his former office.
The account @SPNigeria, verified
by Twitter, was created in June 2015. It was created for the purpose of
information dissemination from the office.
Mr Saraki was Nigeria’s Senate
president between June 8, 2015 and June 8, 2019.
Upon completion of his four-year
tenure as Senate president, the account was expected to be transferred to the
new Senate president, Ahmad Lawan. Instead, the former Senate president decided
to archive his activities on the former handle.
The move generated a backlash
among Nigerians.
The controversy
Followers of the Twitter account
were surprised to find out on Thursday that the account had been personalised
by Mr Saraki.
The account which bore Senate
President of Nigeria was changed to Former Senate President of the 8th Nigerian
Senate still using the official twitter handle @SPNigeria.
However, following comments from
followers, the handle was later changed to @SP8thNGRSenate.
The new handle has all the
contents earlier contained in the former handle archived in it.
This development instigated
criticisms from Nigerians.
In a tweet, the special assistant
to President Buhari on Digital/New Media, Tolu Ogunlesi, clamoured for a proper
hand over of the handle.
“I’m confused – how can you
personalize a verified account set up for the Office of the Senate President of
Nigeria? The proper thing is to hand over @SPNigeria to new President and then
convert the archived ABS page to @SPNigeria8thSenate or something similar,” he
tweeted.
Also, a social commentator,
Kayode Ogundamisi, berated the former Senate President for holding on to the
handle.
“So it appears @bukolasaraki is
not ready to release the official @Twitter handle @NGRSenate to the 9th Senate.
“No surprises. Oti di baraku.
“Now we have to deal with a new
handle @SPNigeria,” he tweeted via @ogundamisi.
The duo was replied by Olu Onemola,
one of Mr Saraki’s aides who argued that it was important to preserve the
digital record of the former Senate president.
He later tweeted that the Twitter
handle @SPNigeria has been transferred to handlers of the new Senate president.
“The @SPNigeria created for the
Office of the Senate President, has now been transferred to the new holders of
the office. While the archived account which will not be tweeted from again or
utilized in anyway will have the handle @SP8thNGRSenate.
“It is important to note that
throughout this process I have been talking to people on the new Senate
President’s Online team and we have had no issues. They are now managing the
@SPNigeria handle.
“I take full responsibility for
wanting to preserve the activities and achievements of @BukolaSaraki which were
recorded on the handle in question. It was inline with practices adopted by
other institutions during transition period,” he tweeted.
Whose property?
Few hours after Mr Onemola’s
tweet came first tweets from the @SPNigeria after it was transferred to the new
Senate President.
“@SPNigeria is now under the
control of the office of the Senate President and fully active,” the account
tweeted.
Even though the account has been
transferred to the new Senate President, @SPNigeria will have to build from
scratch.
A check by Friday noon showed
that the account has only 6, 228 followers with 24 tweets since being handed
over.
This is a far followership
distance from the former account which followership and contents have now been
transferred to Mr Saraki.
The @SP8thNGRSenate has over 218,
000 followers as at last check by Friday afternoon.
The account is considered a
public property by Nigerians and as such they want it to remain a preserve of
the office and not the occupier.
“Why change of handle?This is not
mature. So you want to tell us if there was a website domain for the senate,so
the website too will change; common . let’s stop all this and grow advance.The
9th senate should continue with the old handle . we all knew when they resume
office,” a Twitter user Olasupo Tayo tweeted via @tayota_rapper.
But Mr Onemola thinks otherwise.
He tweeted, “The decision to
archive the @SPNigeria handle of the former Senate President was aimed at
having a handle that preserved his official online activities and records for
the public to view in the future.
“This does not in any way stop
the current occupant of the Office from utilizing the @SPNigeria username. A
notable example is: when Obama left office, the @POTUS account was transferred
to the Trump team — while @POTUS44 was created as an archive of all Obama’s
activities.”
The world laughs at you, your explanation is ridiculous.
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