The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to commence investigation into how the Ecological Fund had been spent by all levels of government since 2001, Leadership reports.
SERAP is specifically asking the president to direct the attorney-general of the Federation and minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) and appropriate anti-corruption agencies to promptly and thoroughly investigate the spending and prosecute indicted persons.
These demands are contained in an open letter dated October 22, 2022 and signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare.
The group also gave the federal government a seven-day ultimatum to comply with its demands in public interest or it would seek legal redress.
SERAP, which stated that the ravaging flooding had resulted in the loss of over 600 lives, displacement of more than a million persons and destruction of properties worth billions claimed that trillions of ecological funds had allegedly gone down the drain.
It maintained that theft of the fund by government officials and the collaborators had resulted in human costs which directly threaten human rights, rights to life and to a place to live, rights that the government has an obligation to protect.
SERAP stated that irrespective of the cause of a threat to human rights, the government still had positive obligations to use all the means within its disposal to uphold the human rights of those affected.
It also noted that although ecological funds were shared across the three tiers of government and emergency management agencies, saying the funds were managed and supervised by the federal government.
SERAP, however, insisted that the federal government had the legal obligations to hold all tiers of government and emergency management agencies to account, and to trace, find, and recover any missing ecological funds.
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