Founder of Nairaland Seun Osewa has explained that the website’s host took down the site because he overlooked an abuse report.
Nairaland is one of Nigeria’s most popular websites.
The online discussion forum has dominated Nigeria’s web rankings for almost two decades.
Users noticed it became inaccessible on Monday night and immediately raised alarm.
Explaining the reason for the website’s disappearance, Mr Osewa wrote early Tuesday on X, “Nairaland’s server was taken down because I overlooked an abuse report that was originally sent on the 14th. After the takedown, I removed the offensive content.
Bitcoin trader Gaius Chibueze offers Seun Osewa N150m to buy Nairaland
Businessman Stephen Akintayo offers N1bn to buy Nairaland after initial N100m
“The UI for bringing back the server didn’t work so it took hours to get support on how to get that done. Minutes after the forum was brought back, they took the server down again with no warning.
“I’m guessing that the content I removed was still cached on Cloudflare servers, so they could still see it. I have cleared the caches now, but they are not communicating.”
Hours later, Osewa gave an update, saying: “The technical support team has informed me that only the abuse team has the power to reinstate our server, that their review could take up to 48 hours, and that nothing can be done to speed up the process.
“I’ve been informed that the only thing I can do is wait. It’s humbling.”
