Lagos based Lawyer and Human Rights Activist, Inibehe Effiong, has filed a fundamental rights enforcement suit to challenge the suspension of social media platform, Twitter, by Federal Government, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN).
In the originating motion marked FHC/L/CS/542/
2021, Effiong is seeking nine reliefs including an order of perpetual injunction restraining the respondents from further suspending, deactivating or banning the operation and accessibility of Twitter or any other social media service in Nigeria.
Effiong asked the court to declare as illegal the threat of criminal prosecution issued by Malami and Mohammed against Nigerians who ‘violate’ the suspension or ban of Twitter, despite the absence of any written law.
The activist asked the court to declare that the act of the respondents in “suspending the operation and accessibility of Twitter in Nigeria without any written law that is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society enabling the said suspension is unconstitutional, unjustifiable, undemocratic, arbitrary, null and void and amounts to a violation of the right of the applicant and other Nigerians to use Twitter for expression, reception of information and impartation of ideas and is therefore contrary to Section 39 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) and Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act, Cap. A9 L.F.N. 2004. Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.”
Credit: ObjecTv media