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| Lai Mohammed |
A human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, has sued the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), and the Federal Government for suspending social media platform, Twitter.
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.”
In his supporting affidavit, Effiong, who is also the
National Legal Adviser of the African Action Congress and Co-Convener of the
Coalition of Human Rights Defenders, said he was an active Twitter user since
2021 and currently has 45,500 Followers and follows 13, 600 accounts on the
platform including dozens of accounts of broadcast stations in the country.
The activist stated that as a public affairs commentator,
he uses Twitter to express his views on the failure, inadequacies and
performance of the government at all level, including the Federal Government of
Nigeria and its agencies.
Effiong recalled that on June
1, 2021, the President, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), who is a
Twitter user, tweeted a series of tweets in a thread in response to the agitations
in the South East on his verified Twitter account with the handle @MBuhari with
millions of followers.
Buhari’s tweet was
considered offensive by many Nigerians who flagged it and reported it to
Twitter.
The
lawyer said Twitter subsequently deleted the President’s comment, a move that
led to the suspension of Twitter days later.
Effiong
said it was a known fact that every Twitter user had agreed to abide by the
rules of the platform before being allowed to use it.
He said
the decision of the respondents to suspend Twitter have gravely “infringed on
my freedom of expression and that of broadcast stations and other Nigerian
citizens who depend and rely daily on Twitter for information, expression and
impartation of ideas. This has caused me emotional trauma and distress and
limited my capacity to connect with the global community.”