X Ban and its Effects on Nigeria’s Political and Economic Development

Abstract

X is an essential platform for information exchange, marketing customer services and remote work, especially during public health and safety emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic making its ban in Nigeria impossible not to affect a wide spectrum of its subscribers and slow commerce, cut productivity and ultimately jobs losses aside from the internal and external political implications that accompanied it as well. Hence, the paper’s objective is to ascertain the extent to which the X ban affected Nigerian political and economic development using the lens of small and medium scales enterprises (SMEs).Lagos state and computer village, renown for computer, mobile phones and other digital enabling devices in the sub-national unit of Nigeria, the business nerve center of the country, was selected as focus for the study because of the appropriateness of its features. Thedescriptive survey design was adopted for the research and the findings revealed that the suspension adversely affected Nigeria’s political and economic development as it breached Nigerians’ human right to expression, stained the country’s national image, devastate the e-commerce businesses such as lowering profits and cut jobs which increases unemployment rate. The study recommends that the government should improve on human rights respect, and explore alternative dispute resolution measures while X embraces adherence to national operational rules and laws amongst others.