A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Thursday, adjourned till July 22 for further mention in the N10 billion fundamental rights enforcement suit filed by Nollywood actor, 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.
When the matter, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1272/2026, came up before Justice S.O. Ibrahim, counsel for 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 the second respondent, INEC, was absent and consequently prayed the court for an adjournment to enable the electoral body to appear.
Counsel for the first respondent, Akpama Ekwe, did not oppose the application but told the court that, he was prepared to proceed with the matter.
The plaintiff’s lawyer further informed the court that he would file his response to the first respondent’s counter-affidavit between Thursday and Friday.
Justice Ibrahim said he would grant a short adjournment in the interest of fair hearing and to afford INEC an opportunity to appear before the court.
Ekwe, however, urged the court to fix the matter for hearing, arguing that INEC could not be compelled to appear.
The judge maintained that the short adjournment was intended to give the second respondent an opportunity to participate in the proceedings and subsequently adjourned the case till July 22 for further mention.
The court also ordered that INEC be served with the hearing notice alongside all processes filed in the suit before the next adjourned date.
The suit stems from allegations that Ike’s personal voter registration details were unlawfully disclosed on the media aide’s official X handleafter screenshots showing the transfer of his voter registration from Imo State to the Federal Capital Territory surfaced on social media.
Ike contends that the information was published by Olayinka without his consent, allegedly after being accessed from a restricted INEC administrative portal.
In the suit, the actor is seeking N10 billion in damages for the alleged breach of his right to privacy, as well as orders directing the removal of the social media post and a public apology. INEC has, however, maintained that the incident did not result from a cyberattack on its database but from the misuse of authorised internal access credentials.
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