Babatunji Wusu –

On Wednesday, Nairaland.com, one of the most popular websites in Nigeria, entered its third day of unavailability. Users expressed their annoyance at the inaccessibility of the website.

The online discussion forum Nairaland, which has dominated Nigeria’s search results for nearly 20 years, was “taken down” by its server’s host on Monday.

The creator of the forum, Seun Osewa, revealed via tweets on his X profile early on Tuesday that he had “overlooked” an abuse report when it was “originally sent on the 14th,” which was the cause of the outage.

He continued by saying that the host had shut down the service and “removed the offensive content.”

But he added that the forum was back up on the server after he had to wait a few hours to receive assistance in fixing the problem.

When “they took the server down again with no warning,” Osewa continued, things took a different turn.

The creator of the site made an appeal to members and sponsors in an early tweet on Wednesday, saying that his “neglect of Nairaland is directly responsible.”

The tweet read, “Dear Nairaland members and advertisers, I’m very sorry for this unacceptable, ill-timed outage.

“My neglect of Nairaland is directly responsible. I was also unprepared to move to a new host at a moment’s notice after nine years with the current host. The process is ongoing but slow.”

However, users of the forum and tweeps of the social media app, X, have been expressing their displeasure and disappointment over the development.

A user, @BashirAhmaad, tweeted, “Does anyone have information on what’s happening with Nairaland? Typically, it is part of my nightly routine to check the site before bed, but it appears the page is down tonight. Could it be a technical issue, hacking, or something else?”

@jigslionheart wrote, “You mean you have never thought about investing in your own server? As big as NL is?”

Another tweep, @ebunleyi stated, “@seunosewa still think Nairaland is a joke. You overlook what? Imagine if Google experienced such downtime. You really do not rate Nairaland like we rate it sha. Get an active team in place and upscale this site. It means a lot to a lot of Nigerians.”

@rani_reine tweeted, “No wonder. I have tried logging in multiple times in the past six hours. Please get it back.”

Another user, @akintollgate, wrote, “Nairaland is bigger than being at the mercy of a host! Scale! Scale! Scale…..I open Nairaland at 7am, 12pm, 5pm and 11pm daily! You have built a true indigenous brand! It’s bigger than what your preferences are….build a team and let it unleash its potential! All the best…..”

One user, @Bimfo, stated, “Own the Abuse team. Have your server at your disposal. As you said in 2014 when we were hacked, Nairaland is bigger now. Oga Mii, Employ people. You are capable. If you really want to consider this advice, you can start by employing me, sir. I will manage any amount.”

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