A Federal High Court in Abuja adjourned Emeka Ike’s N10bn suit against INEC and Lere Olayinka on Thursday, over voter data breach claims.
Justice Salim Ibrahim’s courtroom in Abuja was quiet on Thursday morning when Emeka Ike’s N10 billion suit against INEC and Lere Olayinka came up for mention. Neither respondent showed.
Only Leonard Adeh, Ike’s counsel, stood before the judge. But the session still moved, with Adeh flagging a service concern that briefly held proceedings before he could even raise his adjournment request.
Adeh told the court the bailiff had only served parties the previous day. “I want to bring to the notice of the court that the bailiff told me that parties were only served yesterday,” he said, pressing Justice Ibrahim for clarity on the nature of service on Olayinka, the 1st defendant.
Justice Ibrahim directed a court worker to produce the proof of service on record. Adeh reviewed it. Satisfied, he pushed forward.
The lawyer noted that Olayinka, who serves as Senior Special Assistant to FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, and INEC were still within the lawful window to file their defence. He sought more time.
Justice Ibrahim granted the adjournment and ordered that hearing notices be issued and served on both respondents.
The suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1272/2026, was filed on June 15, 2026. No defence papers from either respondent had been filed as of Thursday afternoon.
Ike launched the fundamental rights enforcement action naming Olayinka as 1st respondent and INEC as 2nd. The case centres on the alleged unauthorised exposure of his personal voter data.
In May, Olayinka posted screenshots on X showing details of Ike’s voter registration transfer from Imo State to Abuja. Yet the information appeared to have been pulled from a restricted INEC administrative portal not a public database while Olayinka questioned the actor’s eligibility to contest a House of Representatives seat.
Ike had contested the AMAC/Bwari Federal Constituency seat for the 2027 elections on the Nigeria Democratic Congress platform. He lost the primary. The screenshots circulated widely before INEC issued any public statement, documents seen by Westtrybe confirm.
Many Nigerians accused Olayinka of gaining unauthorised access to a password-protected backend system reserved for INEC officials. INEC pushed back, denying its Continuous Voter Registration database had been hacked or breached by any external actor.
And yet the commission’s own acknowledgment cut against that denial INEC confirmed the disclosure resulted from the misuse of valid internal credentials by authorised personnel. That admission is now central to Ike’s legal argument.
Ike is asking the court to declare INEC’s June 2 press release a tacit admission of guilt and liability. Court documents show he is seeking N10 billion in aggravated and general damages against both respondents, to be paid jointly and severally, for violating his constitutional right to privacy.
He’s leaning on the 1999 Constitution for this one, along with Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There’s also Sections 24 and 39 of Nigeria’s Data Protection Act of 2023, which round out the legal grounds behind his claim. He is also asking the court to compel Olayinka to retract and delete the offending post.
Beyond the deletion, Ike wants an unreserved written apology published on Olayinka’s X account and in three national newspapers for two consecutive weeks. The demand is specific. The damages figure is steep.
Operatives of the Force Intelligence Department’s Intelligence Response Team moved on the matter separately, reportedly questioning Olayinka and an electoral officer over the alleged leak from the commission’s portal. The Department of State Services launched its own parallel probe.
Both investigations remain active. No agency has disclosed any public outcome. Justice Ibrahim’s court will set a fresh hearing date as the N10 billion suit against INEC and Lere Olayinka grinds forward.
