President Muhammadu Buhari has been dragged to court \u201cover his failure to publish the names of those indicted for the misappropriation of over N6trillion in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
\nIn the suit filed at the Federal High Court, Abuja, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) seeks \u201can order of mandamus to direct and compel President Buhari to publish the names of those indicted.
\nThe money was looted between 2000 and 2019, as documented in the recent Forensic Audit Report on NDDC.
\nThe suit, which has been assigned to Justice Binta Nyako at Court 2, is fixed for hearing on November 29, 2021.
\nSERAP also seeks \u201can order of mandamus to compel President Buhari to direct the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami SAN, and appropriate anti-corruption agencies to bring to justice anyone suspected to be responsible for the missing N6trillion, and to fully recover any stolen public funds.\u201d
\nSERAP argues that \u201cIt is in the public interest to promptly publish the names of those indicted in the audit report, and to ensure that they face prosecution, as appropriate.\u201d
\n\u201cThe public interest in publishing the names of those indicted by the audit report outweighs any considerations to withhold the information, as there would be no prejudice against those whose names are published as long as the information is appropriately framed and truthful,\u201d the group said.
\nSERAP also argues that, \u201cThe Buhari administration has legal obligations under Section 15(5) of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended) to abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power, and article 26 of the UN Convention against Corruption to ensure effective prosecution of allegations of corruption.\u201d
\n\u201cThe audit report raises prima facie evidence of grand corruption and its staggering effects in the Niger Delta. Nigerians have the right to know the names of those indicted and other details in the report, as guaranteed under the African Charter on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights and the Freedom of Information Act.
\n\u201cPublishing widely the report and the names of those indicted would remove the possibility of obstruction of justice, and provide insights relevant to the public debate on the ongoing efforts to combat grand corruption and the longstanding impunity of perpetrators in the country.\u201d
\nSERAP also seeks \u201can order of mandamus to direct and compel President Buhari to widely publish and make available to Nigerians the Forensic Audit Report on the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) submitted to him on September 2, 2021.\u201d
\nJoined in the suit as respondent is Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN.
\nThe suit was filed on behalf of SERAP by its lawyers, Kolawole Oluwadare and Opeyemi Owolabi.
\nThe Forensic Audit Report into the activities of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) reveals grim allegations of misappropriation of N6trillion in the commission between 2000 and 2019, and that there are over 13,000 abandoned projects in the Niger Delta.
\nAccording to the report, the NDDC operated a total of 362 bank accounts, which resulted in a \u2018lack of proper reconciliation of accounts.\u2019
\nSERAP, in a letter dated September25, 2021, requested Buhari to publish the names of those indicted in the audit report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Muhammadu Buhari has been dragged to court \u201cover his failure to publish the names of those indicted for the misappropriation of over N6trillion in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). In the suit filed at the Federal High Court, Abuja, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) seeks \u201can order of mandamus to direct and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":280953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[688],"class_list":["post-280944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280954,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280944\/revisions\/280954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/280953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}