Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has lampooned the All Progressive Congress (APC) over attempts to clampdown on dissenting voices.
The ruling party under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has been exploring all option it has to regulate the social media it has severally blamed for hate speech, fake news, threatening national security among others.
The regime publicly displayed its displeasure with regards to social media when it banned Twitter, citing threat to national security, two days after a remark of Mr Buhari, deemed genocidal, was deleted for violating the rules of the micro-blogging networking giant.
During its days in the opposition, the party used all the social media platforms to propagate its criticism of the President Goodluck Jonathan administration it later succeeded in pushing out of power.
Though the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) arrested and prosecuted several critics like the APC has continued to do, it never thought of regulating the social media largely used by the opposition.
Commissioning nine roads in the state reconstructed by his administration on Friday, the PDP governor queried why the APC now wants to stifle free speech it made use of while seeking power.
“You told us lies through social media,” Mr Wike said. “The same social media that you used to take over government, the same social media you want to regulate and ban.
“The same social media you used to tell Nigerians lies of how former President Goodluck Jonathan did not do this, how PDP did not do that.
“Now, you want the same social media to be regulated. You don’t want freedom of speech. Now, you want to gag them. Did anybody gag you when you were using them?” he queried.
