Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has dragged President Bola Tinubu to court over \u201cthe failure to probe the grim allegations that over $15billion oil revenues, and N200billion budgeted to repair the refineries in Nigeria are missing and unaccounted for between 2020 and 2021.\u201d
\nThe allegations are contained in the 2021 report by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
\nJoined in the suit as respondent is Mr. Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.
\nIn the suit filed Friday at a Federal High Court in Lagos, SERAP is seeking: \u201cAn order of mandamus to direct and compel President Tinubu to probe the allegations that $15billion of oil revenue, and N200bn budgeted to repair and maintain the refineries in Nigeria are missing and unaccounted for.\u201d
\nSERAP is also seeking: \u201can order of mandamus to compel President Tinubu to direct appropriate anti-corruption agencies to probe allegations of corruption involving the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited, NNPC, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NPDC, and State Owned Enterprises, SOE.\u201d
\nSERAP is also seeking: \u201cAn order of mandamus to compel President Tinubu to use any recovered proceeds of corruption to enhance the well-being of Nigerians.\u201d
\nIn the suit, SERAP is arguing that: \u201cThere is a legitimate public interest in ensuring justice and accountability for these serious allegations. Granting the reliefs sought would end the impunity of perpetrators and ensure justice for victims of corruption.\u201d
\nSERAP is also arguing that, \u201cThe allegations of corruption documented by NEITI undermine economic development of the country, trap the majority of Nigerians in poverty and deprive them of opportunities.\u201d
\nAccording to SERAP, \u201cUnless the President is directed and compelled to get to the bottom of these damning revelations, suspected perpetrators would continue to enjoy impunity for their crimes and enjoy the fruits of their crimes.\u201d
\nSERAP is arguing that, \u201cMany years of allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the spending of oil revenues and impunity of perpetrators have undermined public trust and confidence in governments at all levels.\u201d
\nSERAP is also arguing that, \u201cThe findings by NEITI suggest a grave violation of the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended], national anticorruption laws, and the country\u2019s obligations under the UN Convention against Corruption.\u201d
\nThe suit on behalf of SERAP by its lawyers, Kolawole Oluwadare, Andrew Nwankwo, and Ms Valentina Adegoke, read in part: \u201cThe Tinubu government has a constitutional duty to ensure transparency and accountability in the spending of the country\u2019s oil wealth.\u201d
\n\u201cSERAP is seeking an order of mandamus to direct and compel President Tinubu to put in place mechanisms for accountability and transparency in the oil sector.
\n\u201cSection 13 of the Nigerian Constitution imposes clear responsibility on the government to conform to, observe and apply the provisions of Chapter 2 of the constitution. Section 15(5) imposes the responsibility on the government to \u2018abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power\u2019 in the country.
\n\u201cUnder Section 16(1) of the Constitution, the government has a responsibility to \u2018secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and equality of status and opportunity.\u2019
\n\u201cSection 16(2) further provides that, \u2018the material resources of the nation are harnessed and distributed as best as possible to serve the common good.\u2019
\n\u201cSimilarly, articles 5 and 9 of the UN Convention against Corruption also impose legal obligations on the government to ensure proper management of public affairs and public funds, and to promote transparent administration of public affairs.
\n\u201cThe UN Convention against Corruption and the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption obligate the government to effectively prevent and investigate the plundering of the country\u2019s wealth and natural resources and hold public officials and non-state actors to account for any violations.
\n\u201cSpecifically, article 26 of the UN convention requires the government to ensure \u2018effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions\u2019 including criminal and non-criminal sanctions, in cases of grand corruption.
\n\u201cArticle 26 complements the more general requirement of article 30, paragraph 1, that sanctions must take into account the gravity of the corruption allegations.
\n\u201cNigeria is also a participating state of the EITI, which aims to foster greater governmental accountability for the use of natural resource wealth through the creation of a set of international norms on revenue transparency.
\n\u201cEITI also aims to tackle corruption, poverty and conflict associated with natural resource wealth. Nigeria has the obligations to implement the EITI Standard, which sets out the transparency norms with which participating States including Nigeria must comply.
\n\u201cAccording to the 2021 report by NEITI, government agencies including the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NNPC and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NPDC, failed to remit $13.591million and $8.251billion to the public treasury.
\n\u201cThe NNPC and NPDC failed to remit over 70 percent of these public funds. NEITI wants both the NNPC and NPDC to be investigated, and for the missing public funds to be fully recovered.
\n\u201cThe report also shows that in 2021, the SOE and its subsidiaries (the NNPC Group) reportedly spent US$6.931billion on behalf of the Federal Government but without appropriation by the National Assembly. The money may be missing.
\n\u201cThe NNPC also reportedly obtained a loan of $3billion in 2012 purportedly to settle subsidy payments due to petroleum product marketers but there is no disclosure of the details of the loan, subsidy and the beneficiaries of the payments.
\n\u201cThe report also shows that N9.73billion was paid to the NNPC as pipeline transportation revenue earned from Joint Venture operations but the money was neither remitted to the Federation nor properly accounted for. The NPDC in 2021 also failed to remit $7.61million realized from the sale of crude oil.
\n\u201cThe report documents that about N200billion was spent on \u2018refineries rehabilitation\u2019 between 2020 and 2021 but \u2018none of the refineries was operational in 2021 despite the spending.\u2019 NEITI wants the spending to be investigated, as the money may be missing.\u201d
\nNo date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has dragged President Bola Tinubu to court over \u201cthe failure to probe the grim allegations that over $15billion oil revenues, and N200billion budgeted to repair the refineries in Nigeria are missing and unaccounted for between 2020 and 2021.\u201d The allegations are contained in the 2021 report by the Nigeria […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":324616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[688],"class_list":["post-324611","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\/324611","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=324611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324620,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324611\/revisions\/324620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/324616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=324611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=324611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=324611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}