SERAP to Buhari - Publish details of N800 billion recovered loot

SERAP has enjoined Buhari to publish details of N800 billion recovered loot.

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has asked the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to order the publication of a comprehensive list of names of people from whom N800 billion in looted funds have been recovered.

The group, in a Freedom of Information Act request, asked the President to direct the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, and Minister of Justice and Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, to publish the details of spending of the money and the dates of the recovery.

SERAP also urged the president to “direct appropriate anti-corruption agencies to promptly, thoroughly and transparently investigate allegations that payments totalling N51 billion were made into individual accounts in 2019.”

SERAP’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, said, 

“SERAP notes that in your speech to mark the occasion of the Democracy Day on June 12, 2020, you disclosed that the government’s anti-corruption fight has yielded over N800 billion in recovered loot.

Publishing the details regarding the N800 billion recovered loot and investigating the alleged suspicious payments into personal accounts would be entirely consistent with fundamental principles of due process, and Nigeria’s international anti-corruption commitments.

The information will also reveal the truth of where the money is going and why it is there, and allow Nigerians an opportunity to assess the impacts of any projects carried out with the recovered loot and the alleged payments into individual accounts.”

SERAP takes Buhari, Osinbajo to Appeal court over assets declaration

ANTI-corruption advocacy group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, has taken its asset declaration case against the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo to the Court of Appeal.

The group is seeking an order of mandamus compelling the Code of Conduct Bureau to make public contents of the assets declaration forms filed by Buhari, Osinbajo, as well as the 36 state governors and their deputies.

SERAP had recently met a setback after the Federal High Court in Lagos threw out its suit.

But displeased with the judgment delivered by Justice Muslim Hassan, SERAP, according to a statement on Sunday by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oludare, has now gone on appeal.

The group is contending that Justice Hassan misinterpreted the law and “failed to consider that the Freedom of Information Act was enacted by the National Assembly in 2011 to grant public access to public documents.” It said, 

“The learned trial judge erred in law by holding that the Freedom of Information Act is a legislation of general nature in relation to public access to asset declaration forms of public officers. The judge erred in law when he held that SERAP’s application ‘is unmeritorious and it is accordingly dismissed’.

The learned trial judge failed to apply the provisions of Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act Cap A9 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, which allows access to public documents to the facts of this case.

The failure or refusal by the CCB to provide the information requested by SERAP constitutes a violation of their right to freedom of information guaranteed by Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.”

Budget slash : SERAP drags FG to UN

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has dragged the Federal Government before the United Nations. This was done due to the plans in motion to slash the education and health care budgetary allocations in the country.

In the petition, the group also urged the UN to prevail upon the Federal Government to drop the plan to spend N27bn on the renovation of the National Assembly complex as soon as possible.

The Deputy Director of SERAP, Kolawole Oludare, said that the petition was sent to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Koumbou Boly Barry; UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Dainius Puras; and the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Olivier De Schutter.

SERAP accused the Nigerian authorities of “putting politicians’ allowances and comfort before citizens’ human rights.” It said, 

“The budget cuts show failure to address the growing economic and social inequality in the country and to genuinely address the consequences of COVID-19 on the poor and marginalised groups.

Nigeria’s budget deficits are caused by excessive expenditures on politicians’ allowances and mismanagement.

Nigerian authorities would only be able to commit to fiscal discipline if they prioritise cutting the allowances of lawmakers and the costs of governance in general, rather than cutting critical funding for healthcare and education.

We believe that alternative policies and measures, such as reducing the costs of governance, including the excessive allowances for high-ranking public officials and the lawmakers, would have been a more appropriate solution to addressing budget deficits, as this would increase the available resources for healthcare and education, which in turn would contribute to reducing socio-economic inequality.”

SERAP takes Wike and FG to ECOWAS court

A human rights group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), has sued Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike and the Federal Government over the “brutal crackdown, repression and grave violation and abuse of human rights of Rivers State people.”

The suit, marked ECW/CCJ/APP/20/20, was filed last Friday on SERAP’s behalf by its solicitors, Kolawole Oluwadare, Atinuke Adejuyigbe and Opeyemi Owolabi, at the ECOWAS Court of Justice in Abuja.

In the suit, SERAP contended that “Governor Wike is using COVID-19 as a pretext to step up repression and systematic abuses against the people of Rivers State, including mass arbitrary detention, mistreatment, forced evictions and imposition of pervasive controls on daily life.

Governor Wike is using executive orders 1 and 6, 2020 as instruments to violate and abuse the rights to liberty and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention to a fair trial, and to property, contrary to Nigeria’s international human rights obligations, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

This suit is primarily against Governor Wike and Rivers State government for failing to respect, protect and ensure the constitutionally and internationally-guaranteed human rights of the people of his state. The governor has used executive orders 1 and 6 to run roughshod over the human rights of Nigerians.

Ultimately, the Federal Government, being the signatory to ECOWAS treaties and protocols, cannot escape its responsibility to ensure that the human rights guaranteed under human rights treaties to which Nigeria is a state party, are fully and effectively realised throughout Nigeria, including in Rivers State.

Suing the Federal Government alongside Governor Wike is entirely consistent with Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which provides that a state may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty”, SERAP stated.

The rights group, therefore, asked the court for an order of injunction to “restrain and stop Governor Wike from further using, applying and enforcing executive orders 1 and 6 or any other executive order to harass, arbitrarily arrest, detain and demolish property of the people of Rivers State.

It is also seeking, among other reliefs, an order directing “Governor Wike and the other defendants to pay adequate monetary compensation to the victims of human rights violations and abuses, and to provide other forms of reparation, which may take the form of restitution, satisfaction or guarantees of non-repetition, and other forms of reparation that the court may deem fit to grant.” No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.