The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has said that it does not have the constitutional power to prosecute offenders of Twitter suspension order issued by the Federal Government.
Recall that the Attorney General of the Federation(AGF), Abubakar Malami, had in a statement, issued on Saturday, June 5, directed the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), to liaise with the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy, the NCC and other relevant government agencies “to ensure the speedy prosecution of offenders without any further delay.”
Speaking to the press on Monday, June 7, on how far the NCC had gone in collaborating with the DPP to prosecute Twitter ban offenders, the Director of Public Affairs, Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, said it was not within the power of the commission to arrest or prosecute.
Adinde said;
“The NCC is a regulator. It is not within our power to arrest or prosecute. Based on our statement, we limited ourselves based on the order given to us by the government, which was to instruct the operators to disconnect, which was what we did. So, the other aspects are not within our purview”.
