The Community Court of the Economic Community of West African States(ECOWAS) has fixed July 9, 2021, for the consolidation of all applications before the court on the Twitter ban by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
This was announced on Tuesday, July 6 by the ECOWAS Court in a virtual court sitting held via zoom .
Two petitions before the court were from; the Registered Trustees of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project against the Federal Government marked ECW/CCJ/APP/23/21; the Media Rights Agenda and eight others against the Federal Government marked ECW/CCJ/APP/29/21.
The lawyer representing the Federal Government, 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.
The 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.
