SERAP Sues Tinubu Over ‘Failure To Probe Missing $2.1bn, N3.1trn Of Subsidy Payments’
The Socioeconomic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has filed a lawsuit against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
According to the group, the lawsuit was filed because the president failed to investigate allegations that USD$2.1 billion and N3.1 trillion in public funds from oil revenues and budgeted as fuel subsidy payments between 2016 and 2019 are missing and unaccounted for.”
The lawsuit was filed after the Auditor-General of the Federation alleged in its 2016 and 2019 annual reports that public funds were missing.
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In the suit number FHC/L/CS/1107/23 filed last Friday in the Federal High Court in Lagos, SERAP seeks: “an order of mandamus to direct and compel President Tinubu to promptly investigate allegations that USD$2.1 billion and N3.1 trillion in public funds are missing and unaccounted for from 2016 to 2019.”
SERAP is also seeking: “an order of mandamus compelling President Tinubu to direct anti-corruption agencies to promptly investigate fuel subsidy payments made by governments since the return of democracy in 1999, identify and prosecute suspected perpetrators, and recover the proceeds of crimes.”
SERAP also seeks: “an order of mandamus to direct and compel President Tinubu to use any recovered proceeds of crime as palliatives to address the impact of the subsidy removal on poor Nigerians, and to put in place mechanisms for transparency and accountability in the oil sector.”
In the lawsuit, SERAP asserts: “The allegations that US$2.1 billion and N3.1 trillion of public funds are missing and unaccounted for amount to a fundamental breach of national anticorruption laws and the country’s international obligations, including those under the UN Convention against Corruption, to which Nigeria is a state party.”
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SERAP also asserts, “The Tinubu administration has constitutional and international legal obligations to investigate these allegations and ensure accountability for these grave crimes against the Nigerian people.”
According to SERAP, “directing and compelling President Tinubu to promptly investigate, name and shame, and bring to justice the perpetrators and to recover any missing public funds would advance the right of Nigerians to restitution, compensation, and assurance against future occurrences.”
Further, SERAP asserts, “Allegations of corruption in fuel subsidy payments suggest that the poor have rarely benefited from the use and management of the payments.”
The complaint filed on behalf of SERAP by its attorneys Kolawole Oluwadare, Adelanke Aremo, Valentina Adegoke, and Ayomide Johnson stated, in part, “There will be no economic growth or sustainability without accountability for human rights crimes.”
No date has been set for the suit’s hearing.
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