The government of President Bola Tinubu has filed a lawsuit against it for failing to release the findings of the forensic audit of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). The project is named in a lawsuit filed by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project and four concerned Nigerians.
Kolawole Oluwadare, SERAP’s deputy director, made this known in a statement released on Sunday.
He claimed that the agency’s top officials and politicians were at fault for the N6 trillion disappearance between 2001 and 2019 due to the forensic audit.
The Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike, claimed the wife of a former minister received $48 billion over the course of 12 months to “train Niger Delta women.”
Prince Taiwo Aiyedatiwa, Chief Jude Igbogifurotogu Pulemote, Ben Omietimi Tariye, and Princess Elizabeth Egbe are the defendants in the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs filed a petition last Friday in Abuja before the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, and are requesting “a declaration that the Nigerian government’s failure to publish the NDDC forensic report constitutes a fundamental violation of the country’s international human rights obligations.”
READ MORE: EFCC hosts entertainers, and others seeks support for Naira abuse.
The plaintiff requests “an order directing and compelling the Nigerian government to adopt and ensure effective measures to address transparency and accountability gaps in the spending of public funds budgeted for the NDDC” and “an order directing and compelling the government to publish and ensure access to information to the NDDC forensic report that has been submitted to the government but has been shrouded in secrecy.
The NDDC forensic report found no evidence that the Nigerian government had violated our constitutional right to know the truth about the corruption allegations.
The report’s publication obstructs impunity and conceals the allegations made in the report.
The public’s right to free access to information and information about what governments are doing on their behalf contributes to their assertion that government participation would remain fragmented and illogical.
The NDDC forensic report was not released by the Nigerian government, according to the plaintiffs, and it was not also disclosed to them or the general public in any way.
As part of the wider right to obtain, receive, and share information, the government is legally required to uphold transparency and grant access to the report.
There is a preponderance of the public’s interest in the publication and disclosure of the NDDC forensic report, according to lawyers Kolawole Oluwadare, Kehinde Oyewumi, and Andrew Nwankwo on behalf of SERAP and the four citizens.
Source: Channels TV
Leave a Reply