Founder and Senior Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church formerly known as Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare on Sunday warned South West governors against regulation of social media.
The Governors of southwest region had demanded that the government employs laws and regulations bench-marked from other countries to provide safeguards against the spread of fake news and that the 2015 Cyber Act should also be fully used.
”The Federal Government should ensure that technology is used effectively for the advancement of the Nigerian Security and not its destruction by working with the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, the governors decided at a meeting on Nov. 9th.”
But, Pastor Bakare, on his Twitter page on Sunday, warned that anyone that takes Nigerian youths for granted does so at its own peril.
He strongly advised the southwest governors to desist from strict regulation of social media.
On his Twitter page, Bakare wrote: “ I would like to state at this juncture that there is a ninth power bloc that must not be taken for granted: it is the Nigerian Youth with the power of social media.
“Any political group that takes the social media savvy Nigerian youth for granted does so at its own risk or peril.
“This is why I strongly advise the power blocs, including the South West Governors who are calling for stricter regulation of social media, to desist from doing so.”
Bakare added that Nigerian youths raising their voices on social media against bad governance and End SARS promoters are not enemies of Nigeria but the hope of the nation.
“I, therefore, state without equivocation that these young Nigerians who have found their voices on social media are not the enemies of Nigeria. They are the hope of our nation,” his tweet added.