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A High Court in Abuja has adjourned the N10 billion suit filed by Nollywood actor and politician Emeka Ike against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Lere Olayinka, media aide to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, over the alleged unlawful disclosure of his voter information.
Ike is seeking N10 billion in damages, alleging that his constitutional right to privacy was violated after his voter registration details were published on Olayinka’s official X account.
At Wednesday’s proceedings, counsel to the plaintiff, L.T. Adeh, informed the court that the first respondent had filed and served its response to the suit.
Adeh also told the court that hearing notices had been served on both respondents but noted that INEC, the second respondent, was absent.
He consequently applied for an adjournment to enable the electoral commission to appear before the court.
Counsel for the first respondent, Akpama Ekwe, did not oppose the application but said he was ready to proceed with the hearing. Adeh also informed the court that he intended to file a response to the first respondent’s counter-affidavit between Thursday and Friday.
Justice Ibrahim granted a short adjournment in the interest of a fair hearing, saying it was necessary to give INEC an opportunity to participate in the proceedings.
Although Ekwe urged the court to fix the matter for hearing, arguing that INEC could not be compelled to appear, the judge maintained that the adjournment was appropriate.
He subsequently adjourned the case until July 22 for further mention and directed that INEC be served with the hearing notice and all processes filed in the suit before the next court date.
The suit follows allegations that Ike’s voter registration details were unlawfully disclosed on Olayinka’s X account after screenshots showing the transfer of his voter registration from Imo State to the Federal Capital Territory circulated on social media.
According to Ike, the information was published without his consent after it was allegedly accessed through a restricted INEC administrative portal.
In addition to the N10 billion in damages, the actor is seeking an order directing the removal of the social media post and a public apology.
INEC has denied any breach of its database, maintaining that the incident resulted from the misuse of authorised internal access credentials rather than a cyberattack on its servers.
Speaking with journalists after the hearing, Ekwe described the plaintiff’s evidence as inadmissible, insisting that his client had committed no wrongdoing.
“There is no case against my client. What my client published, apart from being in the public domain, does not contain any personal information. The only thing that document contained is the name of Emeka Ike and the transfer number. The second document contained his passport photograph and his name.
“So you will agree with me that there was no personal data that was published as is alleged. So there is actually no case against my client,” he said.
Adeh, however, argued that INEC had repeatedly failed to defend the suit because it had no credible defence.
He expressed confidence that the case would set an important legal precedent for protecting Nigerians’ voter data.
“It is very possible that whoever accessed this thing must have also been able to access other records. So it is not just Emeka Ike. But we want to use Emeka Ike’s issue and also ensure that this kind of thing is put in check. I think this is going to be a very interesting case, and we hope that the court will do justice,” he said.
