By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
President Muhammadu Buhari can only have one sided conversation with Nigerians on twitter, a visit to his twitter feed has shown.
The tweets he regularly sends out can no longer be engaged by Nigerians who always take advantage of the app to express their grievance or support for government policies.
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The move is strange for a public figure because the feedback mechanism help them to assess their popularity or policies.
But the president disabled the reply to his twitter feed at about 5:06pm when he tweeted about the railway project he approved.
He tweeted: “Yesterday I had the honour of commissioning the standard gauge railway line from Itakpe to Warri, via the steel town complex of Ajaokuta, an important link for Nigeria’s economy, as the Central rail line. Yet another demonstration of our commitment to infrastructure revival.
“We have approved an extension of this line from Itakpe to Abuja, thereby connecting the Northern part of the country, and also a southwards extension to link the Warri Ports. We will continue to connect people across cultural divides and expand the frontiers of trade & commerce,” he said.
There were no replies to the tweet, only such approvals mechanisms as likes, retweets and quote.
An attempt to reply the tweet was unresponsive. A message from twitter popped up saying only those mentioned in the tweet can reply.
The president has three social media handlers – Tolu Ogunlesi, Bashir Ahmad and Lauretta Onuchie. They are the ones that tweet with the handle. It is not clear if they alerted the president before disabling the feedback mechanism of his tweeter.
But the reason for disabling the reply for the president’s tweet may be because of the kind of feedback he gets every time he tweets.
For instance, when he tweeted today, September 30, at about 5:00 pm congratulating the Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah of his appointment, the first 21 replies to the tweets were ifb meaning I follow back.
The other engagements had nothing to do with the issue.
