A court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ruled that President Muhammadu Buhari’s ban on Twitter in Nigeria was illegal.
Kolawole Oluwadare, the deputy director of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), claims that the court further directed the Buhari-led government of Nigeria not to repeat such.
Following the deletion of a tweet published by Buhari’s account, Nigeria banned Twitter in June 2021.
The prohibition was revoked in January 2022 after a 7-month period.
However, the ECOWAS court ruled that the case was admissible and that it had the authority to hear it in the judgment it issued today, July 14.
In addition, the court ruled that Twitter’s operation being suspended violates both Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, both of which Nigeria is a state party.
The court declared that the Buhari administration had violated the rights of SERAP and 176 concerned Nigerians to exercise their freedom of expression, access to information and the media, and right to a fair trial by halting Twitter’s operations.
Additionally, the court commanded the Buhari government to take the required actions to align its policies and other measures to give effect to rights and freedoms, as well as to ensure that the illegal Twitter ban won’t happen again.
The Buhari administration was also ordered by the court to pay for the proceedings’ costs, and the Deputy Chief Registrar was given instructions on how to evaluate those costs.
Femi Falana, a lawyer for SAN SERAP in the case, responded to the verdict by saying:
“We commend the ECOWAS Court for the landmark judgment in the case of SERAP v Federal Republic of Nigeria in which the Judges unanimously upheld the human rights of community citizens to freedom of expression, and access to information. Even though the Court had granted an interim order of injunction last year which restrained the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami SAN from prosecuting Nigerians who defied the Twitter ban, SERAP deserves special commendation for pursuing the matter to a logical conclusion.”
