By TAIYE AGBAJE

The Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday fixed July 2 for hearing in a N10 billion rights suit filed by a Nollywood actor and politician, Emeka Ike, against Lere Olayinka.

Olayinka is the Senior Special Assistant to FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike.

Justice Salim Ibrahim fixed the date after Ike’s counsel, Leonard Adeh, sought an adjournment to enable the respondents file their defence.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ike, in the fundamental rights enforcement suit, sued Olayinka and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as 1st and 2nd respondents over alleged breach of personal data.

When the case was called on Thursday, only the applicant’s lawyer, Adeh, was in court.

He informed the court that the matter was scheduled for mention.

“However, I want to bring to the notice of the court that the bailiff told me that parties (respondents) were only served yesterday.

“My lord, I want to know the nature of service effected, particularly on the 1st defendant (Olayinka),” the lawyer prayed.

When the judge asked him why he made the request, he said: “We don’t want to have jurisdictional issue my lord.”

Justice Ibrahim then directed a court worker to avail Adeh with a copy of the proof of service in court’s record.

“My lord, I am satisfied sir,” Adeh responded.

The lawyer, who said Olayinka and INEC were still within time to respond, sought an adjournment.

Justice Ibrahim subsequently adjourned the matter until July 2 for further mention.

The judge ordered that hearing notices be issued and served on 1st and 2nd respondents.

The Nollywood actor, who was an aspirant for the House of Representatives’ seat for AMAC/Bwari Federal Constituency, Abuja for the 2027 general elections on the platform of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), lost the bid in a primary poll.

The minister’s aide, through a post on ‘X’ in May, was alleged to have mocked Ike by leaking his confidential voter registration details on social media.

The post was said to have shown details of Ike’s voter registration transfer from Imo to the nation’s capital.

Olayinka was alleged to have used the screenshots, which appeared to be pulled from INEC’s restricted backend portal, to question the actor’s eligibility to contest the seat under the NDC.

The post sparked outrage, with many Nigerians accusing Olayinka of gaining unauthorised access to a password-protected backend system meant only for INEC officials.

Reacting, INEC dismissed claims of a major breach or external hacking of its continuous voter registration (CVR) database.

The electoral umpire attributed the unauthorised disclosure of Ike’s voter information to the misuse of valid internal credentials by authorised personnel.

Investigators from the Force Intelligence Department, Intelligence Response Team (FID-IRT), also invited Olayinka and an electoral officer over the alleged leak of voter data from the INEC portal.

Meanwhile, Ike, in the suit filed by Adeh, asked the court to declare that Olayinka’s decision to publish his database on X without his approval “amounts to gross breach and violation of the applicant’s fundamental right to privacy and the protection of personal data”.

Ike argued that Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution, Article 12 of the universal declaration of human rights, and Sections 24 & 39 of the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023 guaranteed his right to privacy and protection of personal data.

The actor asked the court to declare that INEC owes him and other voters a “statutory duty of care” to protect their private data against unauthorised access.

The applicant, therefore, prayed the court to award him N10 billion against Olayinka and INEC as aggravated and general damages, to be paid jointly and severally for violating his fundamental right to privacy.

He sought a declaration that the press release by INEC dated June 2, in reaction to the viral publication and circulation of his personal voter information and private data on social media by Olayinka, amounts to a tacit admission of guilt and liability to him.

He also wants a declaration that they were jointly liable and responsible to him for breach and gross violation of his fundamental right to privacy and the protection of personal data.

These, he said, are guaranteed under the 1999 Constitution (as amended), Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Sections 24 & 39 of the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023.

Ike, equally, sought an order directing Olayinka to immediately retract and pull down the offensive post and publication on his social media X handle, @OlayinkaLere, containing screenshots of his personal voter information and private data.

He sought an order directing him to immediately tender an unreserved apology in writing for breach and violation of his fundamental right and publish same on his (Olayinka’s) X handle.” (NAN)

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