Wike’s Aide Lere Olayinka, INEC Floor Actor Emeka Ike’s On ₦10bn Damages Suit
The Federal High Court in Abuja has dismissed N10 billion rights suit filed by Nollywood Actor Emeka Ike against Lere Olayinka, Senior Special Assistant to FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Justice Salim Ibrahim, in a judgement on Wednesday, upheld the preliminary objections of the respondents on the grounds that the suit was incompetent and improperly constituted.
Justice Ibrahim also dismissed the main suit on the ground of lack of proof.
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.
Meanwhile, Ike, in the suit filed by L. T. Adeh, sued Olayinka and INEC as 1st and 2nd respondents.
Ike, who aspired to contest the AMAC/Bwari Federal Constituency seat in the House of Representatives for the 2027 general elections on the platform of the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), had lost in the party primary.
In May, Olayinka was alleged to have mocked Ike on his X handle by publishing his voter registration details, including details of his transfer of voter registration from Imo State to the Federal Capital Territory.
In the suit filed through his lawyer, L.T. Adeh, Ike asked the court to declare that Olayinka’s publication of his voter details without his consent “amounts to gross breach and violation of the applicant’s fundamental right to privacy and the protection of personal data.”
He relied on Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Sections 24 and 39 of the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023.
Ike also asked the court to declare that INEC owes him and other voters a statutory duty to protect their private data against unauthorised access, and sought N10 billion in aggravated and general damages against Olayinka and INEC jointly and severally.
In their defence, Olayinka argued that the document he published contained only Ike’s name and passport photograph which were already in the public domain, while INEC said the information was not classified or confidential and that there was no external breach of its Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) database.
INEC, in its response, said the issue complained about in the suit filed by Ike was neither classified, sensitive nor confidential information.
The commission, in the counter affidavit deposed to by Anthonia Makwe, an Assistant Director/Data Protection Officer in the Legal Drafting and Clearance Department, said that such information is displayed and published in accordance with the Electoral Act, 2026.
It stressed that the electoral body possessed the “statutory and constitutional power to make available information of its voters to the general public without the consent of any registered voter.”
It said its “statutory responsibility includes the compilation, maintenance, display, publication, certification and management of the register of voters in accordance with the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), the Electoral Act 2026, and the National Data Protection Act 2023.
It said what was alleged to be posted by Olayinka on his X handle did not emanate from the commission.
The court held that Ike failed to prove how his rights were violated and dismissed the suit.
