The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a civil society organisation, has asked the Federal High Court, Abuja, to order the state governors to fund the health sector with the funds they receive as security votes.
SERAP made the request in a file with suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/757/2020, filed at the court last Friday.
The CSO in the suit filed by Kolawole Oluwadare and Atinuke Adejuyigbe, its counsels, specifically asked the court to “direct and compel 36 state governors to use public funds budgeted for security votes, and life pensions for former governors to fund healthcare facilities and to address the impact of COVID-19 on millions of Nigerians, as well as publish details of spending on COVID-19 in their respective states”.
The organisation explained that the lawsuit was filed following the refusal of state governors in inadequately responding to its Freedom of Information (FoI) requests dated 25 April. It revealed that only two governors—Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai and Kwara State Governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq—responded to its FoI requests.
“While “governor El-Rufai claimed that the FoI is inapplicable in Kaduna state, governor Abdulrazaq stated that the information requested by SERAP is protected from disclosure by the FoI,” the application read.
But SERAP insisted that by a combined reading of the FoI Act, the Nigerian Constitution, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which is applicable throughout the country, governors El-Rufai and Abdulrazaq and other 34 governors ought to be compelled to invest in healthcare facilities and to tell Nigerians how they are spending COVID-19 funds and donations in their states.
The organisation, therefore, informed the court that it is seeking “an order for leave to apply for judicial review and an order of mandamus to direct and compel the 36 state governors to disclose how much they have individually collected from the Federal Government as COVID-19 support, from private donations and other sources, as well as details of spending of any such funds and donations”.
It is also asking for “a declaration that the failure of the 36 state governors to respond in a satisfactory way to SERAP’s requests amount to a fundamental breach of the FoI Act, the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended), and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights”.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.
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