Court adjourns FoI suit against Rivers varsity over late filing

By Brave Dickson

Justice Augusta Chukwu of a state high court in Port Harcourt has again adjourned till November 21, 2019, for hearing, following the late filing of the process by the state attorney general in a freedom of information suit brought by Mr Mark Lenu against the Rivers State University.

The plaintiff (Mark Lenu) who had dragged the 1st defendant (The university), 2nd defendant (The vice-chancellor) and the 3rd defendant (The state attorney general) to court over alleged refusal by the 1st and 2nd defendants to furnish him with certain information he had formally requested for is now praying the court to grant him the following reliefs:

“A declaration that the plaintiff is entitled to receive the information applied for from the 1st and 2nd defendants, having made written application and the 1st and 2nd defendants have received the same request on the 10th day of April 2019.

“A declaration that the failure and or refusal of the 1st and 2nd defendants to make available to the plaintiff the information applied in the plaintiff’s letter to the 1st and 2nd defendants is wrongful, unlawful and amounts to a gross violation of the plaintiff’s right of having access to information as established and guaranteed by section 1(1) and 4 of the Freedom of Information Act 2011.

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“A declaration that the failure and or refusal by the 1st and 2nd defendants to make available to the plaintiff, the information applied for or give written notice to the plaintiff in the plaintiff’s letter to the 1st and 2md defendants amounts to wrongful denial of access to information under section 7(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2011 and a gross violation of sections 4(b) of the Freedom of Information Act.

“An Order of this honourable court on the 1st and 2nd defendants to make available to the plaintiff a hard copy of the Information requested and soft copy through his email,” among others.

Speaking with our correspondent, lawyer to the plaintiff, Barr Kingdom Chukwuezie said: “The matter came up for the first time for a hearing. The university and its vice-chancellor had turned in their processes and surprisingly, the attorney general of the state appeared in court through his legal representative and filed his reaction on the day of the hearing.

“And because the attorney general was just filing on the same day that the matter was to be heard, we posited that since the state attorney general had just filed his process, it will be important for we to have a
little time to enable us to look at the process and respond accordingly.

“The court was of the view that our prayer for a little time extension was proper which the court agreed with. To that extent, the court did adjourn the case to the 21st day of November 2019 for hearing and determination of the suit.”