SERAP Loses Case In Court Against FG Concerning The Twitter Ban

A Federal High Court in Abuja has today dismissed a suit filed against the Federal Government for directing television and radio stations to delete their Twitter accounts.

The presiding judge, Justice Obiora Egwuatu while delivering the judgement dismissed the suit for lacking in merit and awarded the sum of N100, 000 against the plaintiff.

The Incorporated Trustees of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) had, in June sued the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the Director-General of NBC, and the Minister of Information and Culture as 1st to 3rd defendants respectively for asking all broadcast stations to immediately suspend usage of the microblogging platform after it was suspended 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 an 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.”

Dolupo Balogun

Written by BoomRadioNG