The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has called on the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and House of Representatives Speaker, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, to refer allegations that lawmakers pay up to ?3 million to present bills, motions, and petitions at plenary to anti-graft agencies for investigation.<\/p>\n
The group made the demand in an open letter dated August 16, 2025, signed by its deputy director, Kolawole Oluwadare, and made available to newsmen, yesterday.<\/p>\n
A member of the House of Representatives, Ibrahim Auyo (APC, Jigawa), had in a viral video alleged that lawmakers part with between one million naira and three million naira to present bills, motions, and petitions at the National Assembly.<\/p>\n
In the letter, SERAP urged Akpabio and Abbas to \u201cname anyone that may be involved in the alleged bribery and to ensure the recovery of any proceeds of bribery,\u201d while also calling for the protection of Auyo as a whistleblower.<\/p>\n
“The allegations that lawmakers pay bribes to present motions, bills and proposals at the National Assembly are a grave violation of the public trust and constitutional oath of office by lawmakers.<\/p>\n
\u201cLawmakers should not have to pay bribes to present motions and bills at the National Assembly.<\/p>\n
\u201cBribery should never have any influence in the exercise of legislative duties or running of the National Assembly,\u201d the organisation stated.<\/p>\n
SERAP maintained that \u201cthe allegations that lawmakers are paying up to ?3 million as bribes in exchange for presenting motions and bills make a mockery of lawmaking and legislative powers under section 4 of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended].\u201d<\/p>\n
The group warned that if the National Assembly leadership fails to act within seven days, it would consider legal actions to compel compliance \u201cin the public interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cReferring the allegations to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) for investigation and prosecution would improve public trust in the ability of the leadership of the National Assembly to ensure accountability in the exercise of lawmakers\u2019 constitutional and legislative functions,\u201d it noted.<\/p>\n
Auyo had alleged that \u201cyou have to pay from ?3 million, ?2 million, or ?1 million to present [a bill].<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd after you present the bill, you must follow up by lobbying the whole 360 members of the House to accept the bill.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has called on the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and House of Representatives Speaker, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, to refer allegations that lawmakers pay up to ?3 million to present bills, motions, and petitions at plenary to anti-graft agencies for investigation. The group made the demand in an open […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":347005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346959","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=346959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":347010,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346959\/revisions\/347010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/347005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=346959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=346959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=346959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}