The government shut down the Internet to prevent "exam malpractice"

folarin okunola

June 5, 2017 10:26 AM

This is not the first time the Ethiopian government has implemented some kind of internet cut.

Ethiopian President, Mulatu Teshome.

It’s really getting mundane telling stories of how governments in Africa keep interfering with the internet access for one ridiculous reason or the other. The Ethiopian government shut down Internet access, on Tuesday, May 30, 2017 ahead of a national examination.

According to media reports coming out of the country, restriction to internet access started around 7pm on Tuesday, allegedly to curtail exam malpractice. 1.2 million Ethiopian students took the Grade 10 national exams yesterday, with another 288,000 getting ready for Grade 12 university entrance exams which will hold this week.

Quartz Africa quotes sources in Addis Ababa as saying that internet access was restored on Wednesday, 12 hours after it was cut in the first place. It also quotes other sources who say Internet is still being interrupted.

“No connection at all. Everything was blocked,” said Biniam Alemayehu, a source quoted by Quartz. Alemayehu told the publication that his 4G phone connection didn’t come back until 9:30pm.

This is not the first time the Ethiopian government has implemented some kind of internet cut. In July 2016, the government blocked social media sites like Facebook and Twitter after university entrance exams questions were posted online.

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At the time, the government spokesperson said it was a “temporarymeasure” as social media served as a “distraction” to the students. But that is just a smaller incident.

Ethiopia is also one of the first countries in the world to censor the Internet to stop protests against the government, despite having one of the lowest internet and mobile connectivity rates in the world.

To put some perspective on how bad the situation is, Quartz reports that over 500 anti-government protesters have been killed since November 2015 while thousands more have been arrested for demanding land reforms and demanding an end to human rights violations.

The government has responded over time by declaring a state of emergency, shutting down the mobile internet and banning the use of social media to document the ongoing unrest in the country.

That shut down has cost the country millions of dollars in revenue according to a Brookings Institution report. Last month, the government sentenced an opposition politician Yonatan Tesfaye to six and a half years in prison for Facebook posts he made criticising the government.

All of this just boils down to what is now a worrying trend on the African continent. What can be done really? What would you do if the Nigerian government shut down the internet? You let us know in the comments section below.

folarin okunola