Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has threatened to drag state governors and the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, to court if they failed to account for the trillions they received from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) since 1999. SERAP gave the governors and Nyesom Wike seven days to provide it with documents on how much money they received from the FAAC in a Freedom of Information (FOI), request signed by its deputy director, Kolawole Oluwadare.
The civil society organisation also urged them to invite the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), to track and monitor the spending of FAAC allocations jointly and to probe any allegations of corruption linked to the allocations. In the FoI requests dated April 20, 2024, SERAP stated that Nigerians need to know how public funds, including FAAC allocations, are spent. It also insisted that without the information, Nigerians cannot follow the actions of their states and the FCT and cannot adequately fulfil their responsibilities as citizens.
The organisation claimed that trillions of FAAC allocations received by Nigeria’s 36 states and the FCT have allegedly gone down the drain, which had resulted in human costs directly threatening the human rights of socially and economically vulnerable Nigerians. The organisation said secrecy in the spending of FAAC allocations received by states and the FCT is entirely inconsistent and incompatible with the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended) and the country’s international anti-corruption obligations.
