President Muhammadu Buhari and Justice Minster Abubakar Malami refuse to be transparent in accounting for the management of recovered N800bn assets in the last six years, and the APC governors refuse to play politics.
The 22 APC governors and their PDP counterparts, through their attorneys-general, have thus instituted an action against Buhari, Malami and the accountant-general of the federation.
In the suit before the Supreme Court and marked as SC/CV/395/2021, the 36 Attorneys General are seeking for “a declaration that by the provisions of Section 162(1) and Section 162(10) of the Constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), all income, returns, proceeds or receipts howsoever described derived from confiscated, forfeited and/or recovered assets constitute revenue of the federal republic of Nigeria, which must be remitted to federation account for the collective benefit of the federal, state and local governments.
“A declaration that the failure and/or refusal of President Muhammadu Buhari, the minister of finance, the office of the AGF, and the accountant-general of the federation, and all other relevant authorities and/or agencies of the federation to remit the receipts, income, returns or proceeds derived from all assets recovered, seized, confiscated and forfeited into the federation account to be distributed in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution” is unconstitutional.”
They also prayed the court to declare that “it is unconstitutional for the President, through the federal Minister of Finance, the AGF, or any other authority whatsoever, to utilise, apply, allocate, expend and appropriate same to itself or distribute same in any other manner howsoever without due allocation from the federation.”
The plaintiffs deposed that “between 2015 till date, the FRN has secured both international and municipal forfeiture, recovery and repatriation of “stolen assets” in the sum of NI,836,906,543,658.73, about 167 properties, 450 Cars, 300 Trucks and cargoes, and 20,000,000 barrels of crude oil worth over N450million”, and had failed to remit same as required by the Constitution.
Amongs assets the Buhari administration has recovered so far include those of the late President Sani Abacha, ex-Oil Minister Diezani Allison Madueke, ex-NSA Dasuki Sambo, and others running to billions of naira.
Buhari himself in paragraph 8 of his Democracy Day speech stated his government has recovered N800 billion so far.