By Seyi Odewale
A rights group, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), has filed a lawsuit against President Bola Tinubu’s government over what it called “the arbitrary, unconstitutional, unlawful, unfair, and unreasonable 50 percent telecom tariff hike by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).”
The NCC was joined in the suit as a defendant.
The NCC recently approved a 50 percent hike in telecom tariffs. With the increase, the average price of calls would rise to N16.5 per minute from N11; the cost of 1GB of data would rise to N431.25 from N287.5/GB; and Short Message Service (SMS) prices would move to N6 from N4.
A statement by SERAP’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, yesterday said the suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/111/2025 filed last Friday at the Federal High Court, Abuja, was SERAP was asking the court to determine “whether the unilateral decision by the NCC to authorise telcos to hike telecom tariffs by 50 percent is not arbitrary, unconstitutional, unlawful, unfair, unreasonable and inconsistent with citizens’ freedom of expression and access to information.”
SERAP is asking the court for “a declaration that the unilateral decision by the NCC to authorise telcos to hike telecom tariff by 50 percent is arbitrary, unfair, unreasonable, inconsistent, and incompatible with citizens’ freedom of expression and access to information, and therefore unconstitutional and unlawful.”
The group is also seeking “an order of interim injunction restraining the NCC, its officers, agents, privies, assigns, or any other person or persons acting on its instructions from further implementing, enforcing and doing any act to give effect to the decision of the NCC authorizing telecom tariff hike by 50 percent.”
In the suit, SERAP argued, “The legal and constitutional provisions, as well as international standards on freedom of expression and access to information, constitute the repository of legality. The requirements of legality constrain the exercise of statutory powers by the NCC to authorise any increase in telecom tariffs.”
The suit, filed on behalf of SERAP by its lawyer, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN, read in part, “The demands of legality impose 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 this suit.
“The NCC is required under the legal provisions on consumers’ rights and constitutional and international standards on freedom of expression and access to information to base its decision on reasonable interpretations of its enabling statutes and guidelines and other relevant legal frameworks and to follow due process.
“The exercise of the statutory powers of the NCC in approving the telecom tariff hike is a grave violation of the provisions of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018, the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended), and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights to which Nigeria is a state party.
“These legal and constitutional provisions and international human rights standards recognize that every individual has the right to an equal opportunity to receive, seek and impart information through any communication medium without discrimination, among others.”
SERAP is, therefore, asking the court for the following reliefs, among others, “A declaration that the unilateral decision of the NCC in approving the increase of telecommunications tariff by 50 percent is arbitrary, unfair, unreasonable, and a deliberate attempt to stifle the constitutional and international human rights of citizens to freely express themselves and share information, and breach of sections 104 and 127 of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018, section 39 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Nigeria is a state party.”
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the interim application and the substantive suit.
