The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has filed a suit before the Federal High Court in Abuja against the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, over their failure to probe the allegation of the missing N4.4bn budgeted for the National Assembly.
The group noted that the suit followed the refusal of Lawan and Gbajabiamila to probe or to refer the matter to appropriate anti-corruption agencies after the Auditor-General of the Federation raised concerns about the alleged diversion and misappropriation of the funds.
In the suit FHC/ABJ/CS/366/2021, SERAP sought an order of the court directing and compelling Lawan, Gbajabiamila and the National Assembly to perform their constitutional oversight functions to ensure a prompt and transparent investigation into the allegations that the N4.4bn budgeted for the Assembly might be missing and unaccounted for.
SERAP, in a statement by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, noted that the National Assembly had the legal responsibility to ensure that allegations of corruption and mismanagement documented by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation were promptly, independently, thoroughly and transparently investigated.
The statement read in part, “The failure of the National Assembly to promptly and thoroughly investigate and to refer to appropriate anti-corruption agencies the allegations documented in the annual audited reports for 2015, 2017 and 2018 is a fundamental breach of the oversight and public interest duties imposed on the legislative body by sections 4, 88 and 89 of the Nigerian Constitution.
“This suit seeks to vindicate the rule of law, the public interest, and to promote transparency and accountability. Government agencies and institutions are responsible to a court of justice for the lawfulness of what they do, and of that, the court is the only judge. The National Assembly has no legally justifiable reason to refuse to investigate the allegations documented by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation.”
However, no date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.
