The Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, has restrained telecom operators in Nigeria from deactivating any line whose user did not link same to the National Identification Number (NIN).
It was gathered that Justice Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa, stopped the telecom operators from taking such action while ruling on an application filed by a Lagos-based lawyer, Olukoya Ogungbeje.
INFORMATION NIGERIA reports that Ogungbeje, had asked the court for an injunction pending appeal, restraining all the respondents jointly or severally, whether by themselves, their agents, outlets, agencies, privies, officials, servants, men, parastatals, units, organs, or anybody or person, however, so called, from taking any action capable of enforcing the judgment in anyway and from further outright barring, deactivating and or restricting any SIM cards of any Nigerian citizen, slated for February 28, 2024, or any other scheduled date, pending the hearing and determination of his appeal at the Court of Appeal, against the court’s verdict delivered on May 8, 2023, by Justice Lewis-Allagoa.
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He listed 10 grounds for seeking of the application, which include: “that sometime in April 2022, the appellant/applicant herein took out a suit against the respondents, challenging the action of the respondents in undermining the judicial powers of the court and the Nigerian legal system and thus infringing on the applicant’s fundamental rights
“That this court in a well considered judgment delivered on May 8, 2023, dismissed the appellant/applicant’s suit.
“That the appellant/applicant being dissatisfied with the judgment has exercised his constitutional right of appeal by lodging a notice of appeal against the judgment of this Honourable court on July 26, 2023, by the lower court.
“That the appellant/applicant’s appeal is against the whole decision contained in the judgment of this court.”