Community Court of the Economic Community of West African States, on Tuesday, fixed July 9, 2021, to consolidate all applications before the court on the Twitter ban by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
ECOWAS Court announced this during a virtual court sitting held on Tuesday.
Two applications against the Federal Government over the Twitter ban were on the cause list for the day.
One of them 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 second one 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.
Federal Government’s counsel, 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.
SERAP’s counsel, 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”.
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.