The Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, has merged all the four cases brought before it by different applicants against the Federal Government of Nigeria over the suspension of the microblogging platform, Twitter in Nigeria.
In a virtual court sitting held via Zoom on Friday, the ECOWAS Court consolidated the cases marked as ECW/CCJ/APP/23/21, ECW/CCJ/APP/29/21, ECW/CCJ/APP/24/21, and ECW/CCJ/APP/26/21.
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These cases were filed by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project and 196 others, Media Rights Agency and 8 others, Malcolm Omirhobo, and Patrick Elohor respectively.
In the suit against the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the applicants sought to challenge the action of the respondent in banning Twitter in the country.
The court made the order of consolidation after hearing from the counsels to the four applicants and the counsel to the respondent, who all agreed to the consolidation.
There were two groups before the court seeking to be admitted as amicus curiae in the matter.
The court after hearing the submissions of the parties granted the applications and admitted the organizations as amici curiae in the matter.
The court also adjourned to September 29 for a hearing to enable all parties to organize themselves for trial.
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