The House of Representatives has kicked against a proposal by the Deputy Minority leader of the House, Tobi Okechukwu that the Twitter ban be lifted by the federal government.

Hon. Okechukwu while at the consideration of the report on twitter ban submitted by the chairman House committee on Communication, Hon. Odebunmi Dokun at plenary had called for the lifting of the ban of the micro blog considering the negative consequences it may have on Nigerians.

Recall that the House of Representatives’ joint committee on Committees on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Values, Telecommunications, Information and Technology, Justice, and National Security and Intelligence were asked to investigate circumstances surrounding the Federal Government’s suspension of Twitter.

Lead Chairman of the joint panel, Hon. Odebunmi Dokun had on behalf of the committee presented a six-point recommendation for adoption of the House, but Deputy Speaker Idris Wase sought to know whether the National Security Adviser’s inputs were gotten during the investigative hearing, to which the committee answered in the negative.

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Another twist was added soon after by Deputy Minority Leader, Hon. Toby Okechukwu, who recalled that the committee was given three core areas in the mandate given it, to include; determining the circumstances surrounding the suspension of Twitter in Nigeria, the legal authority upon which the federal government relied on the ban it, and to invite the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed to brief it on the development, stressing that its recommendations however failed to address the issues.

“None of the five recommendations has answered the questions. The committee has not done a prudent work. I would say that this report should not be considered, let the committee go and do a thorough job”, Okechukwu submitted.

With Wase’s observation that though sections of some relevant rules were cited in the report, the recommendations should have addressed prayers of the original motion, Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila intervened, insisting that by the mandate given the committee, it had substantially complied, saying during consideration of such a report; “we can reject, we can amend. If you are not satisfied with a particular recommendation, amend it”.

In an apparent disagreement with the speaker, Wase begged to see that the house do not hurry to make an erroneous decision. “They needed to have exhausted more avenues. Nothing stops them from inviting the NSA. They needed to have gone further”, the deputy speaker insisted, even as he argued that none of the panel’s recommendations was categorical on whether the federal government did the right thing, or acted in error.

Gbajabiamila in response noted that the committee should have expanded its reach, but questioned “who determines what is exhaustive”, adding that the mandate unfortunately had a timeline of just 10 days.