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Twitter Ban: Court Rules Suit Against FG Lacking In Merit

Published

3 years ago

Dec 9, 2021.

…SERAP had sued the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the Director-General of NBC and the Minister of Information and Culture…

EKO HOT BLOG reports that a Federal High Court, Abuja, on Thursday, dismissed a suit filed against the Federal Government for directing television and radio stations to delete their Twitter accounts.

Justice Obiora Egwuatu, in a judgment, dismissed the suit for lacking in merit and awarded the sum of ₦100, 000 against the plaintiff.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the Incorporated Trustees of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) had, in June, filed a fundamental rights enforcement suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/496/21, against three defendants.

In the suit, SERAP had sued the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the Director-General of NBC and the Minister of Information and Culture as 1st to 3rd defendants respectively.

The suit followed the order by NBC, asking all broadcast outfits to immediately suspend patronage of Twitter after it was banned for violating Nigerian laws.

The group had sought an order of perpetual injunction restraining the Federal Government and the regulator from “censoring, regulating, licensing and controlling the social media operations and contents by broadcast stations and activities of social media service providers in Nigeria.”

It also sought and order setting aside the directive asking broadcast stations to stop using Twitter, as being “unconstitutional, unlawful, inconsistent and incompatible with the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 [as amended], and the country’s obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

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