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Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has filed a lawsuit against President Muhammadu Buhari over failure to unblock phone lines of over 72 million telecommunication subscribers barred from making calls on their SIMs.
The suit, filed by its lawyers, Kolawole Oluwadare and Opeyemi Owolabi, followed the recent directive by the Federal Government to telecommunications companies to block outgoing calls on all unlinked lines, as the deadline for the verification expired on March 31.
In the suit, number FHC/L/CS/711/2022 filed last week at the Federal High Court in Lagos, SERAP is seeking “an order setting aside the directive by President Buhari to telecommunications companies to block outgoing calls on all unlinked lines without due process of law, and for being inconsistent with the requirements of legality, necessity and proportionality.”
SERAP is also seeking an order of perpetual injunction restraining President Buhari and the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, from unlawfully directing telecommunications companies to block outgoing calls on all unlinked lines, without due process and in violation of Nigerians’ human rights.
SERAP is further seeking “an order directing and compelling President Buhari to ensure adequate infrastructure and logistics to allow Nigerians, including persons with disabilities, older persons, and persons living in remote areas, to capture their data and conclude registration to obtain National Identity Number (NIN).
In the suit, SERAP is arguing that, “directing and compelling the Federal Government to unblock the phone lines unlawfully barred would be entirely consistent with the 1999 Constitution (as amended), and the country’s international obligations to respect, protect, and promote socio-economic rights.”
SERAP is also arguing that, “where agencies of government are allowed to operate at large and at their whims and caprices in the guise of performing their statutory duties, the end result will be anarchy, and authoritarianism, leading to the loss of the much-cherished and constitutionally guaranteed freedom and liberty.”
According to SERAP, “it is in the interest of justice to grant this application. Access to telecommunications services is a condition sine qua non for the effective exercise of human rights. Therefore, the decision to block people from making calls is discriminatory, and a travesty.”
SERAP is also arguing that, “The blocking of phone lines of Nigerians without due process of law has disproportionately affected those on the margins of society. This has resulted in the discrimination of marginalised or vulnerable groups.”
Joined in the suit as respondents are the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami and Pantami.
