Fed High Court Restrains 5 Telecoms Firms From Suspending APC Campaign Fund Raising Platform.

A Federal High Court in Lagos has restrained five telecoms firms from suspending All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign fund-raising platform.
The Nation reports that Justice Ibrahim Buba on Wednesday made the ex-parte order following the party’s motion.

The court made an order of interim injunction restraining Etisalat, MTN, Glo, Airtel and Visafone from implementing the directive given by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) which barred them from running political promotions that will portray them as being partisan.

The judge directed the telecoms firms to continue to run, operate and/or restore to its full operative use the SMS Code platform 35350 created for fund-raising for the applicant’s presidential campaign.

It was gathered that the court’s orders are to subsist pending the hearing and determination of APC’s originating motion on notice.

Meanwhile, the court also granted APC leave to serve the originating motion on notice and other processes on NCC (the first defendant) outside the court’s jurisdiction following APC’s explanation that the platform is expected to operate till February 12 when campaign activities for the presidential election will end in line with Electoral Act and the election time-table.

However, in the originating motion, the party is demanding N25billion damages from the defendants for violating its fundamental rights and that of its members.

According to APC, since the platform was suspended, it has been unable to disseminate or receive information from its supporters via the SMS code 35350, adding that while the platform was suspended; NCC allowed that of President Goodluck Jonathan to run without a glitch.

The party said it created a “premium SMS code 35350″ through which willing donors could contribute to its presidential campaign fund, revealing that within hours of its creation, it was receiving about five messages of N100 each every minute amounting to a total of 5,400 messages received.

However, NCC in a letter issued on January 19, ordered all telecoms service providers to avoid running political advertisements that will portray them as being partisan, adding that it would not relent to sanction any service provider that flout the directive hence the telecoms firms suspended the fund raising platform.