SERAP sues Wike, governors, over failure to account for N40 trillion LGA allocations

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, has filed a lawsuit against Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, and the 36 State governors in Nigeria for not providing accounts for the alleged missing N40 trillion federal allocations meant for local governments in the FCT and the states.

The suit followed the damning revelations by former president Muhammadu Buhari who in December 2022 stated that, “If the money from the Federation Account is about N100 million, N50 million will be sent to the chairman but the chairman will sign that he received N100 million.”

In the suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/231/2024 filed last Friday at the Federal High Court in Abuja, SERAP is asking the court to “direct and compel the governors to publish details of LGA allocations and actual disbursement of the allocations to local governments in their respective states from 1999 to date.”

The suit was filed on behalf of SERAP by its lawyers, Kolawole Oluwadare, Andrew Nwankwo and Kehinde Oyewumi.

The suit held thar, “Many years of allegations of corruption and mismanagement of federal allocations meant for local governments have contributed to widespread poverty, underdevelopment and lack of access to public goods and services in several states.

“The governors and Mr [Nyesom] Wike have a legal responsibility to promote transparency and accountability in the actual disbursement and spending of federal allocations meant for local government areas in the states and FCT and to ensure that the allocations are dully and fully disbursed to the local governments.

“According to our information, the 36 states in Nigeria and the federal capital territory, Abuja, have collected over N40 trillion federal allocations meant for the 774 local governments areas in the country and FCT.”