By Abiola Olawale
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), alongside four concerned Nigerians, have instituted a lawsuit against the administration of President Bola Tinubu at the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice in Abuja over what they regard as unaddressed matters relating to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
The legal action, marked ECW/CCJ/APP/35/25, is aimed at redressing what the bodies termed alleged federal government’s failure to release a forensic audit report on the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), which allegedly unveiled misappropriation of N6 trillion between 2001 and 2019.
The plaintiffs, including Prince Taiwo Aiyedatiwa, Chief Jude Igbogifurotogu Pulemote, Ben Omietimi Tariye, and Princess Elizabeth Egbe, argued that the government’s refusal or failure to publish the report violates Nigeria’s international human rights obligations, particularly the right to access public information.
The audit, commissioned in 2019 by former President Muhammadu Buhari, was intended to investigate widespread allegations of corruption within the NDDC, a federal agency tasked with developing the oil-rich Niger Delta region.
SERAP’s legal team, led by Kolawole Oluwadare, Kehinde Oyewumi, and Andrew Nwankwo, say they ate therefore seeking a court declaration that withholding the report breaches “Nigeria’s commitments under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”.
They are also requesting an order to compel the government to publish the report and implement measures to address transparency gaps in NDDC’s financial operations, and the Commission’s financial opaqueness.
This was contained in a press statement issued by SERAP on Sunday.
The statement reads in part: “The Nigerian government has violated our right to know the truth about the corruption allegations documented in the NDDC forensic report.
“The obstruction of the publication of the report is perpetrating impunity and the cover-up of the allegations documented in the report.
“Implicit in freedom of expression is the public’s right to open access to information and to know what governments are doing on their behalf, without which truth would languish and people’s participation in government would remain fragmented and illusory.”
