SERAP Sues Buhari Over N106bn Missing Funds From 149 MDAs

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project SERAP has filed a lawsuit against President Muhammadu Buhari over his failure to probe allegations that N106bn of public funds went missing from 149 Ministries, Departments and Agencies.”

The suit followed the allegations by the Office of the Auditor-Generalfollowed the allegations by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation in his 2018 annual audited report that N105,662,350,077.46 was missing, misappropriated, or unaccounted for across 149 MDAs.

In the suit, respondents are the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami and the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed.

In the suit, with number FHC/ABJ/CS/903/2021 filed last week at the Federal High Court in Abuja, SERAP seeks “an order of mandamus to direct and compel President Buhari to promptly investigate the alleged missing N106bn of public funds, ensure prosecution of anyone suspected to be responsible, and the full recovery of any missing public money.”

SERAP stated that “Recovering the alleged missing public funds will reduce the pressure on the Federal Government to borrow more money to fund the budget, enable the authorities to meet the country’s constitutional and international obligations, and reduce the growing level of public debts.

“Directing and compelling President Buhari to ensure the investigation and prosecution of the alleged grand corruption documented by the Auditor-General will be entirely consistent with the government’s own commitment to fight corruption, improve the integrity of MDAs, and serve the public interest.

“The alleged missing public funds have hampered the ability of the indicted MDAs to meet the needs of average citizens, as the missing funds could have helped the government to invest in key public goods and services, and to improve access of Nigerians to these goods and services.”

SERAP is also seeking an order to compel the president “to publish full details of the yearly budgets of all MDAs and issue regular updates that detail their expenditures, including by making any such information easily accessible in a form that can be understood by the public.”

No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.