<\/p>\n
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has filed a lawsuit against President Bola Tinubu over alleged failure to direct the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Lateef Fagbemi, SAN to work with appropriate to probe allegations that over N57 billion of public funds are missing from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation in 2021 alone.<\/p>\n
The damning allegations are documented in the 2021 audited report released last month by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation.<\/p>\n
According to the Deputy Director of SERAP, Kolawole Oluwadare, joined in the suit as respondent is Mr Fagbemi.<\/p>\n
In the suit number FHC\/L\/MISC\/876\/2024 filed last Friday at the Federal High Court, Lagos, SERAP is asking the court \u201cto compel President Tinubu to direct Mr Fagbemi to work with appropriate anti-corruption agencies to promptly probe allegations that over N57 billion of public funds are missing, diverted or stolen from the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation in 2021.\u201d<\/p>\n
SERAP is also asking the court \u201cto compel President Tinubu to direct Mr Fagbemi to work with appropriate anticorruption agencies to prosecute anyone suspected to be responsible for the missing N57 billion, if there is sufficient admissible evidence, and to recover any missing public funds.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the suit, SERAP is arguing that: \u201cInvestigating the allegations and prosecuting those suspected to be responsible for the missing N57 billion and recovering the missing funds would end the impunity of perpetrators.\u201d<\/p>\n
SERAP is also arguing that, \u201cThe allegations amount to stealing from the poor. There is a legitimate public interest in ensuring justice and accountability for these grave allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to SERAP, \u201cPoor Nigerians have continued to pay the price for the widespread and grand corruption in the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviations and other ministries, departments and agencies [MDAs].\u201d<\/p>\n
SERAP is also arguing that, \u201cThe consequences of corruption are felt by citizens on a daily basis. Corruption exposes them to additional costs to pay for health, education and administrative services.\u201d<\/p>\n
SERAP said, \u201cThe allegations also suggest a grave violation of the public trust, the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended), the country\u2019s anti corruption legislation and international anti corruption obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The suit filed on behalf of SERAP by its lawyers, Oluwadare and Ms Oluwakemi Agunbiade, read in part: \u201cGranting the reliefs sought would go a long way in addressing corruption in ministries, departments and agencies [MDAs] and the country\u2019s budget deficit and debt problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe damning revelations are documented in the 2021 audited report released recently by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation. Hundreds of billions of naira are also reportedly missing in other MDAs.\u201d<\/p>\n
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has filed a lawsuit against President Bola Tinubu over alleged failure to direct the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Lateef Fagbemi, SAN to work with appropriate to probe allegations that over N57 billion of public funds are missing from the Ministry of Humanitarian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[662,72,663,664],"class_list":["post-1097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-crime","tag-anti-corruption","tag-fg","tag-law-suit","tag-missing-fund"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1098,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097\/revisions\/1098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}