I won’t buy Twitter blue tick, El-Rufai tells wife

Nasir El-Rufai

Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai has said he would not pay for the Twitter blue tick following its removal from his account.

El-Rufai stated this in response to an enquiry by his wife Hadiza El-Rufai.

“@elrufai Oga, you no wan buy the blue tick?” Mrs El-Rufai tweeted on Saturday.

Her husband responded that he had no plan to make Twitter chief executive officer Elon Musk richer.

“On buying a blue tick @hadizel?: I have no intention of making a very rich man @elonmusk even richer. No, thanks. You can keep your blue tick. I no go buy am, ma!” He said.

The blue tick verification process was brought in by Twitter in 2009 in response to celebrity concerns about impersonation.

Politicians Peter Obi, Bola Tinubu Atiku Abubakar, and Shehu Sani are among those whose Twitter verification tags have also been removed.

Musk, who has seen his $44 billion investment in the site shrivel, described the blue tick prior to now as a “lords & peasants system.”

He added that the price could fluctuate according to country. Twitter’s Blue service operates in a handful of countries. It costs $4.99 a month in the US and in its current guise the service offers a narrower suite of perks such as being able to undo tweets.