Former President Donald Trump praised Nigeria over its Twitter ban Tuesday and encouraged other countries to do the same.
“More countries should ban Twitter and Facebook for not allowing free and open speech — all voices should be heard,” said the former president in a statement. “Who are they to dictate good and evil if they themselves are evil? Perhaps I should have done it while I was President.”
Nigerian social media users can no longer get onto Twitter after the government banned the website indefinitely Friday. In a statement, the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) said it received “formal instructions” to suspend access to Twitter.
Trump’s praise of the country is surprising since he has disparaged African nations in the past, calling them “shithole countries.”
The decision came after the microblogging site deleted one of President Muhammadu Bahari’s tweets last week. His post threatened a growing secessionist movement in southeast Nigeria and referenced the country’s Civil War in the late 1960s. A former military commander, he wrote: “Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.” Many viewed that as a threat of genocide against the Igbo ethnic group, which Buhari has excluded from his government, according to the People’s Gazette.
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“We are deeply concerned by the blocking of Twitter in Nigeria,” said the site’s global public policy team. “Access to the free and open Internet is an essential human right in modern society.”
In his statement, former President Trump suggested he did not ban social media websites while in office because, “Zuckerberg kept calling me and coming to the White House for dinner telling me how great I was.” He then alluded to a potential run for the White House in 2024.
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation. Many citizens are getting around the ban by using virtual private networks to log on, according to the New York Times.