SERAP: Government Lacks Transparency, Only 10% of FOI Requests Are Responded To

Deputy Director of the Socio- Economic Rights and Accountability Projects (SERAP), Kolawole Oluwadare, has made it clear that the major ain of the organisation is to hold the government accountable, especially concerning the case of the looted government funds by past military leader, Sani Abacha.

On Sunday, a Federal High Court in Abuja had requested that the government accounts for the $5bn looted funds said to have been retrieved from the offshore accounts of the deceased head of state.

In a case filed by SERAP on the 3rd of July, presiding judge James Omotosho stated that President Tinubu should disclose the amount which was looted by Abacha, the amount recovered as well as agreement signed by previous presidents Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan and Buhari concerning the looted funds.

He also requested for details of projects executed using the loot as well as companies and contractors who carried them out since the return to democracy in 1999. Furthermore, he requested for details of roles played by the World Bank and partners in the projects.

In an interview with ARISE NEWS on Tuesday, Kolawale stated that the case was filed in court as a follow up to the request sent to the government in 2020 through the Freedom Of Information (FOI) Act.

Legal action was taken after the government failed to respond within the stipulated seven days given to account for the Abacha loot. These were the events that led to the given judgement.

“Basically, it shows the lack of transparency and accountability in the management of public funds,” stated Kolawale, who said he is calling out the government to open up about how the funds have been managed.

A few years back, BBC did an infograph recording over $3bn of stolen loot and then later down the line, other organizations estimated it to be $5bn.

“We are the victims, collectively as a country, of this debts. We should know how much of it that is left. Which is why it forms part of that Freedom Of Information request; for the Nigerian Government to tell us. How much has left the covers of this country by way of the theft of the Abacha government? We do not know, at least not in the public domain. And that sets the background for a new repatriations to know whether what we even have is even less than what had left the country.

“That leads us to how much we’ve gotten back in the country and how those have been spent.

“It is quite unfortunate that the dysfunction that in governance has led us to this point, when we begin to think of other means to enforce the judgement of court.

“The judgement is clear on the face of it. Any responsible government and in this instance, executive should obey orders of court.

“The dysfunction has gone on for so long that they have begun to transfer the job of implementing a judgement to either the applicant, who is SERAP in this case, or to the judiciary and I see no reason why government should not implement this judgement.

“The records are there, with the Ministry of justice or finance. Will they say they don’t have records of how much has come in?

“You’ve seen the attorney general in the past issuing statements and mentioning figures without specifics of how much they have to be spent.

“So, I believe that this record exists in these agencies of government. It is a matter of political will to put them to the public. Of course, if they don’t do this, there are legal mechanisms we can resort to.”

The SERAP deputy director stated that the response to submitted FOI requests is less than 10%, and positive responses are less than 2%.

“This shows the challenges that we have with transparency and accountability as a key part o good governance particularly in the democracy that we are.”‘

Oluwadare also stated that the FOI Act requires that records be kept by public institutions and that objective of the SERAP is simply to publish this to the public for accountability of government.

He said the aim of SERAP is in public interest, toxmake sure Nigerians have access to information and are able to use it as an accountability tool to hold those in office to account.

“So it is not enough for instance as government released last year that 1.9 million households benefited from social safety-led programmes to lift people out of poverty. Incidentally, that same month, November, the Nigerian bureau of statistics brought out a report that more than 113 million Nigerians are poor.

“So the aim is to ensure transparency and accountability and that Nigerian citizens can own this drive for good governance by holding government to account.”

Glamour Adah