The unresolved issue between the Federal Government and Twitter has cost the African country the sum of N111.03 billion between Saturday, June 5 when the Twitter ban took effect to Monday, July 26, 2021, according to Netblocks statistics.

WuzupNigeria reported that the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) announced the indefinite ban on the social media giant on June 4, effective June 5, 2021, after the bird app deleted a tweet by the president for violating its policy.

Recall that the Jack Dorsey-owned app deleted a post where Buhari threatened the insurrectionists in South-East Nigeria who he claimed has been vandalising law enforcement establishments in the region.

However, the presidency denied reports that the suspension was a retaliation to Twitter’s action and since the majority of Nigerian political office holders, including the president, have abandoned the app.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had cited ‘the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence as the reason for the suspension.

On the financial aspect, Nigeria had reportedly lost over N21.7billion in 10 days after the ban, and according to statistics by NetBlocks, Nigeria loses N102.9million ($250,600) for every hour and N2.1billion for every day that the micro-blogging platform is suspended in the country.

It is exactly 51 days after the ban and both parties have failed to resolve their differences leaving Nigerians at the mercy of a virtual private network (VPN) platform to bypass the restrictions effected by telecommunications companies and internet service providers in the West-African country.

According to reports, Nigeria has an estimated 33 million active social media users with 26 per cent on Twitter.

As of the time of this report, the country loss has risen by N89.2 billion to a total of N111.03 billion after 51 days, according to the statistics by Netblocks, using the Brookings Institution method which relies on development indicators and exchange rate as of November 2019.

Twitter, on the other hand, has appeared unfazed by the ban placed by the Nigerian government as it recorded a 74% growth in the second quarter of 2021.