By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA– The founder of PRNigeria, Malam Yushau A. Shuaib, has filed a N1billion suit against the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Kuru, Plateau State, before Federal High Court in Abuja, following the delisting of his name from the Senior Executive Course, SEC, 47,of the Institute.
In the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1329/2025, Shuaib, a renowned public relations expert, is demanding general, special and aggravated damages against NIPSS.
He is equally praying the court to award additional N100million cost of the litigation, stressing that he had earlier issued a pre-action notice on June 16, 2025, to the Institute’s Director General, Professor Ayo Omotayo, which was allegedly ignored by the management.
In the suit he filed through a team of lawyers led by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Yunus Abdulsalam, the plaintiff, among other things, prayed the court to set aside his withdrawal from SEC 47 and to reinstate him with full rights, benefits, and privileges.
The plaintiff also sought an order of perpetual injunction to restrain the NIPSS, its agents or officials from further harassment, intimidation or cyberbullying.
In the originating summons, the plaintiff raised eight issues for the court to determine.
Specifically, he argued that the publication of a news article by PRNigeria, an independent media organisation, could not lawfully be attributed to him as a misconduct when he neither authored nor endorsed the said report.
The plaintiff equally queried whether NIPSS’s alleged access and use of his private email without consent was not in violation of his constitutional right to privacy under Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution.
He contended that disciplinary action against him for professional opinions expressed in a published article breached his right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Section 39(1).
More so, the plaintiff e argued that barring participants from interacting with him and removing him from official platforms amounted to harassment, cyberbullying, and forced isolation.
He maintained that denying him participation in the international study tour, despite his full payment of ₦18.3m course fees, amounted to discrimination and breach of contract.
He also faulted his suspension and withdrawal from the course based on alleged “externalisation of the subject” without a fair hearing, describing it as a violation of his constitutional right under Section 36(1).
Therefore, the plaintiff sought a declaration that actions the NIPSS took against him were unlawful, unjustifiable, discriminatory, and unsupported by any regulation guiding the institute.
In a 40-paragraph affidavit he attached in support of the suit, Shuaib, averred that he was nominated by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, NIPR, to represent it at the course, a nomination approved by the President of Nigeria.
He attached his admission letter, proof of payment of ₦18.3m and evidence of compliance with NIPSS requirements, including handing over responsibilities at his company, Image Merchants Promotion Limited, publishers of PRNigeria.
He alleged that despite complying with institutional rules, he was subjected to harassment, intimidation, and arbitrary disciplinary actions.
According to him, on March 24, he received a query over a PRNigeria article titled “NIPSS Goes Digital; Launches Paperless Platform after Submitting Landmark Report to President Tinubu.”
Shuaib insisted he neither authored nor edited the article, which other media outlets had widely reported.
He further alleged that on April 25, NIPSS again queried him about an internal email concerning an editorial, “Understanding the ‘Blue’ in the Blue Economy.”
He told that he court that the said article was a professional reflection containing non sensitive information, yet NIPSS intercepted it before it could be published.
Shuaib claimed that the queries were unfounded and not supported by the NIPSS Code of Conduct.
He further alleged that his withdrawal letter dated June 2, 2025, was curiously addressed only to NIPR without being officially served on him.
Consequently, the plaintiff urged the court to reinstate him into SEC 47 with full privileges and to declare that NIPSS had no authority to penalise him for content published by an independent platform.
He also prayed the court to hold that accessing his private emails violated his constitutional rights, and to declare his withdrawal unlawful, unjustifiable, and discriminatory.
Meanwhile, no date has yet been fixed for the matter to be heard.
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