Story from Gift LUCKSON, Abuja
An Indian microblogging platform, Koo, on Saturday said it is now available for usage in Nigeria.
This move took place shortly after the Nigerian government announced an indefinite suspension of Twitter, which is believed to be Koo’s rival in the country.
According to local media reports in India, Koo’s Co-founder, Aprameya Radhakrishna, officially confirmed that the platform is now available in Nigeria, and accessible to every Nigerian.
The CEO said Nigeria is similar to India in terms of language diversity, as it has hundreds of regional languages, which is why they are working on adding new local languages to the app.
Aprameya Radhakrishna said they hoped to enlist the 33 million Twitter subscribers unto the Koo app.
Recall that on Saturday, the federal government of Nigeria suspended Twitter’s activities indefinitely. This came some few days after the company deleted a tweet by President Buhari who threatened to punish regional secessionists in the country.
Following the government directives, Nigerian telecoms firms blocked access to Twitter in the country.
Twitter has said that it was investigating, its “deeply concerning” suspension by the Nigerian government.
Hence, the Indian platform utilising the opportunity created by the current row and seeking to fill the gap left by the US tech giant in the populous West African country.
Koo was launched in India, its home market, last year and has managed to secure funding of around $30 million from investors such as Tiger Global, and others.
Koo’s co-founder and chief executive officer, Aprameya Radhakrishna, says that the platform has “aggressive plans to grow into one of the world’s largest social media platforms” and claims vast domestic support for this.
The application is now available on both the Google Play Store and App Store. Koo is downloaded by over 5,000,000 users in India.
In India, the microblogging platform has been experiencing a significant rise in its user base when several ministers and government agencies endorsed the app after Twitter’s alleged refusal to comply with India’s new IT rules.
The CEO further said that Koo will abide by the local laws of each country that it operates in.
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