By Innocent Anaba

LAGOS—A Federal High Court in Lagos has fixed May 21, 2015 for ruling on the preliminary objection by Multichoice Nigeria Limited, challenging the suit by some Nigerian subscribers, who are praying the court to restrain the company from increasing subscription fees on the Digital Satelite television, DStv, being operated by it.

Osasuyi Adebayo and Oluyinka Oyeniji, both lawyers and plaintiffs in the matter, had filed the class action on behalf of themselves and all other DStv subscribers across the country, praying the court to restrain MultiChoice from implementing the 20 per cent increment on DStv subscription rate which began on April 1, 2015.

They also want the court to compel the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC to regulate the activities of MultiChoice so as to prevent what they described as arbitrary increment in subscription rates.

They also want an implementation of the pay-per-view scheme in Nigeria, whereby subscribers would only pay for programmes they watched, as was being done in other parts of the world where MultiChoice operated.