Nigeria Opens an Official Twitter Account ‘@Nigeria’
The Federal Republic of Nigeria has opened an official Twitter account. The handle @Nigeria was first spotted on Twitter on Friday, 9th June 2017, and the first tweet was “Welcome to the Twitter handle for the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Africa’s largest economy, and most populous country.” Since the Twitter handle emerged on Saturday, it has basically been exchanging pleasantries and bants with other countries on Twitter such as Sweden and Israel, besides the other introductory tweets that were posted on the account. Israel made the first step by tweeting at Nigeria saying “welcome to the club, dear @Nigeria – Happy tweeting”.
Indeed, it can be asserted that this was a great move for Nigeria as a country, as it can be implied from @Israel’s tweet that many other countries were already present on Twitter. Countries such as Canada, Ireland, Great Britain, just to mention a few have had verified Twitter accounts for years now. These countries use their Twitter accounts to showcase their culture and traditions. In the same vein, @Nigeria posted another tweet stating that the Twitter account will be used for a similar purpose: “this handle will showcase Nigeria’s culture and context; voices, views and visions; and sights, sounds and spaces. Welcome to the journey”.
It was gathered that the Twitter account was actually opened in June 2016 but was not active. Exactly a year after the accounts was opened, the country made a huge step of getting it verified as well as operating it like other countries. Thus, Nigeria can now rub shoulders with other “clique of nations” on Twitter as being a technologically inclined country. With a website and a blog to its name, we won’t be surprised if the country opens an official Facebook page. Since the countries Nigeria is taking after are not yet active on Facebook, this step might not be taken anytime soon.
