First Bank apologises for Buhari’s Lagos visit tweets

First Bank of Nigeria has apologised to its Twitter followers after it posted a series of tweets that appeared to be mocking Thursday’s visit of Muhammadu Buhari, the President of Nigeria, to Lagos.


The president’s two-day official visit to the state disrupted traffic and caused residents to embark on long walk to their destinations.

“Lagosians how far…. How was the trek this morning? The people still trekking, how’s the #WalkOfChange going,” the bank tweeted around 11:18 a.m., on Thursday, from its Twitter handle @FirstBankngr.

When a Twitter user (@Jenn_nikolas) tweeted at the bank that its tweet was “terrible to look at”, the bank offered a sarcastic response, “Don’t look. Keep trekking”.

Another Twitter user (@omookwah) told First Bank, “This is an epic fail in attempt to ‘hijack’ an issue. You lost the ‘emotional’ drift to this and got caught on the wrong side of story. Always remember…. Market share and mind share.”

“Story,” the bank responded.

FirstBank later pulled back after its tweets attracted a barrage of criticisms.

“Dear Twitter Family. A tweet from us earlier in the day was totally inappropriate. As a responsible organisation, we do not support or share humour taken too far. And that is what this was; humor taken too far. We take it back and apologise unreservedly,” the bank tweeted around 2:14 pm.

First Bank apologises to its Twitter followers
Major routes leading to Muritala Muhammad International Airport, Lagos, were blocked in the morning for the president’s visit.

The action caused travellers to walk about two kilometres to get to the airport, so as not to miss their flight.