The Federal High Court in Abuja has fixed 19 June for judgment in a suit filed by the founder of PRNigeria, Yushau Shuaib, against the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) challenging his withdrawal from the Senior Executive Course (SEC) 47.
Justice Binta Nyako fixed the date on Wednesday after taking arguments for and against the suit by parties involved in the matter.
At Wednesday’s proceedings, where final written arguments were adopted, Shuaib’s lawyer, Teslim Adigun, urged the court to grant the request of his client by declaring his withdrawal from SEC 47 illegal and restoring him to the course.
While adopting his brief of arguments, Adigun held that Shuaib had presented his case in clear terms and that the court should resolve the disputed issues in his favour.
However, counsel to NIPSS, Pius Akubo SAN, said the case of the plaintiff should be dismissed because admission to a NIPSS course is not a fundamental right of anybody.
Justice Nyako, after listening to arguments, announced that she would deliver judgment on 19 June 2026.
The founder of PRNigeria had dragged NIPSS Kuru, Plateau State, before the court challenging his withdrawal from SEC 47 of the institute.
In the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1329/2025, Shuaib, a renowned public relations expert, is demanding N1 billion in general, special, and aggravated damages against NIPSS over alleged emotional trauma and reputational damage.
He is also seeking an additional N100 million as litigation costs, having issued a pre-action notice on 16 June 2025 to the institute’s Director General, Professor Ayo Omotayo, which was allegedly ignored by the management.
The case, filed on his behalf by Yunus Abdulsalam SAN, seeks a court order setting aside his withdrawal from SEC 47 and reinstating him with full rights, benefits, and privileges.
Shuaib is also asking for a perpetual injunction restraining NIPSS, its agents, or officials from further harassment, intimidation, or cyberbullying.
In his originating summons, the plaintiff argued that the publication of a news article by PRNigeria, an independent media organisation, cannot lawfully be attributed to him as misconduct when he neither authored nor endorsed it.
He also questioned whether NIPSS’s alleged access and use of his private email without consent violated his constitutional right to privacy under Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution.
Shuaib further 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).
He 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 N18.3 million in course fees, constituted 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).
Shuaib is therefore seeking declarations that the actions of NIPSS were unlawful, unjustifiable, discriminatory, and unsupported by any regulation guiding the institute.
In a 40-paragraph affidavit, Shuaib stated 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 N18.3 million, 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 24 March, 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 25 April, NIPSS again queried him about an internal email concerning an editorial, “Understanding the ‘Blue’ in the Blue Economy.”
He stated the article was a professional reflection containing no 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 2 June 2025 was curiously addressed only to NIPR without being officially served on him.
The plaintiff is asking the court to reinstate him into SEC 47 with full privileges, to declare that NIPSS has no authority to penalise him for content published by an independent platform, to hold that accessing his private emails violated his constitutional rights, and to declare his withdrawal unlawful, unjustifiable, and discriminatory.
