The Community Court of the Economic Community of West
African States has fixed July 9, 2021, to decide on the consolidation of all
applications before the court on the Twitter ban by the Federal Government of
Nigeria.
The ECOWAS Court stated this in a virtual court sitting held
via zoom on Tuesday.
On the cause list for the day, were two applications against
the Federal Government over the Twitter ban.
One was the application brought by the Registered Trustees of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project against the Federal Government marked ECW/CCJ/APP/23/21.
The other was the application brought by the Media Rights
Agenda and eight others against the Federal Government on the same issue marked
ECW/CCJ/APP/29/21.
The lawyer representing the Federal Government, Abdullahi
Abubakar, informed the court that he has a motion to consolidate all the four
applications before the court on the Twitter ban issue.
In his motion on notice dated July, 5, 2021, Abubakar prayed
for the leave of the court to consolidate the hearing of the applications
pending before the court and other orders that the court may deem fit in the
circumstance.
The Counsel to SERAP, Femi Falana SAN, did not object to the
application.
Falana stated that the application to consolidate will
“afford the court the opportunity to give one judgment in the matters that were
similar in nature and character”.
The Counsel to Media Rights Agenda, Mojirayo Ogunlaya, also
did not object the application for consolidation.
The ECOWAS Court stated that the parties of the other two
cases, which were marked as ECW/CCJ/APP/24/21 and ECW/CCJ/APP/26/21, and sought
to be consolidated were not in court.
Consequently, the court noted that it cannot make a
consolidation order in their absence and without hearing from them.
The court also mentioned that the applicants in all the four
applications were different but the respondents were the same.
I. C. Uzoma, a lawyer, also sought to apply to the court to
intervene as an amicus curiae in the suit brought by SERAP and sought the
permission of the court to move his motion since the parties in the suit he was
interested in, were in court.
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