Human Rights Group, The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, has dragged President Bola Tinubu to court, over what it termed ”arbitrary, unconstitutional, unlawful, unfair, and unreasonable 50 percent telecom tariff hike by the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC.
SERAP equally challenged NCC in the lawsuit filed on its behalf by its lawyer,Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN.
With the 50 percent Telecom Tariff Hike the average price of calls will rise to N16.5 per minute from N11; the cost of 1GB of data will rise to N431.25 from N287.5/GB; and SMS prices to N6 from N4, by the increase.
In the suit filed last Friday, at the Federal High Court, Abuja, SERAP is requesting the court to determine “whether the unilateral decision by the NCC to authorise telcos to hike telecom tariffs by 50 percent is not arbitrary, unlawful, unfair, and inconsistent with citizens’ freedom of expression and access to information”.
SERAP is also seeking that the court should declara that the unilateral decision by the NCC to authorise telcos to hike telecom tariff by 50 percent is arbitrary, unfair, unreasonable and inconsistent and incompatible with citizens’ freedom of expression and access to information.
In the suit, the human rights group argued that the legal and constitutional provisions as well as international standards on freedom of expression and access to information constitutes the repository of legality, adding that the requirements of legality constrains the exercise of statutory powers by the NCC to authorise any increase in telecom tariffs.
The suit imposes clear duties of fairness and reasonableness on the NCC in the exercise of its powers to authorize the telecom tariff hike by 50 percent, which is the subject-matter of the suit.
