By Wale Odunsi
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has filed a lawsuit against President Bola Tinubu over “missing subsidy payments”.
The organisation is seeking a probe of allegations that $2.1 billion and N3.1 trillion budgeted as fuel subsidy payments are unaccounted for.
The suit followed the grim allegations documented by the Auditor-General of the Federation in the 2016 and 2019 annual reports that the public funds are missing.
In the suit, number FHC/L/CS/1107/23 filed last Friday at the Federal High Court in Lagos, SERAP is seeking an order of mandamus to compel Tinubu to act.
It wants the President to direct the anti-corruption agencies to probe subsidy payments made by governments since 1999, name and prosecute suspected perpetrators and recover missing funds.
The recovered proceeds should be used as palliatives to address the impact of the subsidy removal on poor Nigerians, the suit demanded.
The group said misuse of public monies was a “fundamental breach of anti corruption laws and international obligations including under the UN Convention against Corruption to which Nigeria is a party.”
“The Tinubu government has constitutional and international legal obligations to get to the bottom of these allegations and ensure accountability for these serious crimes against the Nigerian people,” SERAP added.
