The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has asked the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos to dismiss or decline hearing the suit filed before it by MTN Nigeria challenging the industry record NGN1.04 trillion fine. MTN’s legal team of seven Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) had approached a Federal High Court in Lagos nullifying the fine.
In a motion on notice filed through its lawyers, Ahmed Raji (SAN) and Mahmud Magaji (SAN), NCC asked the court to dismiss the suit for want of jurisdiction or send it to Abuja. NCC said the suit was wrongly filed in Lagos, noting that the subject of the dispute took place in Abuja, while the two respondents in the suit, NCC and the Attorney General of the Federation, are also based in Abuja.NCC urged the court to void the service of court processes on it, arguing that the commission failed to comply with Section 143 of the NCC Act in serving the processes.
It asked the court to either dismiss the suit or transfer it to the Abuja division of the court.
MTN is claiming NCC did not give it fair hearing before hurriedly announcing the sanction, contending that the sanction of N200, 000 per SIM was excessive, noting that was the highest fine ever imposed on a telecommunications company in the world.
The suit was filed on behalf of MTN by Chief Wole Olanipekun, Tanimola Molajo, A.B. Mahmoud, Dr. Gbolahan Elias, Oladipo Okpeseyi, Prof. Fabian Ajogwu and Dr. Oladapo Olanipekun.
