Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has filed a lawsuit against the Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan and Speaker of House of Representatives, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila over their “failure to cut the unlawful National Assembly budget of N228.1bn, including the N30.17bn severance payments and inauguration costs for members.”
The suit followed the move by the National Assembly to increase its 2023 budget from N169bn proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari to N228.1bn. The approved budget shows an increase of about N59.1bn. The country’s budget of N21.83tn is based on a N10.49tn revenue, and N11.34tn deficit.
In the suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/152/2023 filed last Friday at the Federal High Court in Abuja, SERAP is seeking: “an order of mandamus to direct and compel Dr Lawan and Mr Gbajabiamila to review and reduce the budget of N228.1bn the leadership and members of the National Assembly allocated for their own benefit.”
SERAP is also seeking: “an order restraining and stopping Ms Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning from releasing to the National Assembly the budget of N228.1bn, until an impact assessment of the spending on access to public goods and services and the country’s debt crisis, is carried out.”
SERAP is also seeking: “an order restraining and stopping Dr Lawan and Mr Gbajabiamila from demanding or collecting the National Assembly budget of N228.1bn, until an impact assessment of the spending on access to public goods and services and the country’s debt crisis, is carried out.”
In the suit, SERAP is arguing that: “It is a grave violation of the public trust and constitutional oath of office for the members of the National Assembly to increase their own budget at a time when some 133 million Nigerians are living in poverty.”
According to SERAP: “The National Assembly budget of N228.1bn is higher than the statutory transfer to the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), which is N103.3bn.”
SERAP is arguing that, “The increase is unreasonable, as it would substantially increase the cost of governance, and exacerbate the country’s debt crisis. It is unlawful, and unfair to the Nigerian people.”
SERAP is also arguing that, “Cutting the National Assembly budget would reduce the growing budget deficit, address the unsustainable debt burden, and serve the public interest.”
SERAP is arguing that, “by increasing its own budget, the National Assembly has unjustifiably and disproportionately reduced the budget for the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).”
SERAP is also arguing that, “This is a travesty, especially given that Nigeria currently has over 20 million out-of-school children, and half of all poor people in the country are children.”
The suit filed on behalf of SERAP by its lawyers Kolawole Oluwadare and Ms Atinuke Adejuyigbe, read in part: “The budget should reflect national development priorities, and not serve as a tool to satisfy the lifestyle of lawmakers or provide them with severance payments or parting gifts.”
“Rather than exercising its oversight functions to check the persistent borrowing by President Muhammadu Buhari, and scrutinising the apparently unlawful overdrafts and loans obtained by the Federal Government from the Central Bank of Nigeria, the National Assembly is increasing its own budget.”
“The increase in the National Assembly budget, including the unnecessary proposed spending of N30.17bn on ‘severance payments’ and ‘inauguration expenses’ is a fundamental breach of the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 [as amended] and the country’s international human rights obligations.”
“It is unjustifiable and unreasonable for the National Assembly to arbitrarily increase its own budget when the Federal Government and many of the 36 states are clearly in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress.”
“The National Assembly budget of N228.1bn would increase the country’s borrowing and debt crisis. Growing debt burdens and debt repayment difficulties will have negative impacts on the ability of poor and vulnerable Nigerians to enjoy basic socio-economic rights.”
“Long-term unsustainable debt can be a barrier to the government’s ability to mobilize resources for human rights, and may lead to taxes and user fees that impact negatively on poor and vulnerable Nigerians.”
“The leadership and members of the National Assembly ought to properly discharge their constitutional and fiduciary duties to Nigerians by ensuring judicious spending of public funds, especially given the current economic and financial realities of Nigeria.”
“Nigerians have a right to honest and faithful performance by their public officials including lawmakers, as public officials owe a fiduciary duty to the general citizenry. All those who hold the strings of political power and power over spending of Nigeria’s commonwealth ought not to use their entrusted position for personal gain.”
“Section 14(2)(b) of the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 [as amended] provides that, ‘the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”
“Under Section 16(1)(a)(b), the National Assembly has the obligations to ‘harness the resources of the nation and promote national prosperity and an efficient, a dynamic and self-reliant economy’, and to ‘secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen.’”
“Section 81 of the Nigerian Constitution makes clear that it is the constitutional responsibility of the President to prepare and present estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the country before the National Assembly and not for the lawmakers to unilaterally and arbitrarily allocate public funds to themselves.”
“Nigeria has also ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which recognize legally enforceable economic and social rights, such as the rights to education, health, safe food and clean water, security, and shelter.”
“Section 51 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act provides that, ‘a person shall have legal capacity to enforce the provision of this Act by obtaining prerogative orders or other remedies at the Federal High Court, without having to show any special particular interest.’”
Joined in the suit as Defendants are President Muhammadu Buhari; the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN; and the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.
Kolawole Oluwadare
SERAP Deputy Director
5/2/2023
Lagos, Nigeria
Emails: info@serap-nigeria.org; news@serap-nigeria.org
Twitter: @SERAPNigeria
Website: www.serap-nigeria.org
For more information or to request an interview, please contact us on: +2348160537202
Ndoma-Egba Hails Prince Otu’s Appeal Court Victory
Former Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, SAN, has hailed the ruling of the Appeal Court, dismissing the suit instituted by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Senator Sandy Onor, the party’s candidate for the 2023 Cross River State governorship election, seeking the disqualification of the All Progressives Congress (APC) standard-bearer, Senator (Prince) Bassey Otu.
The legal luminary and ardent supporter of Otu’s guber ambition said the judgement was not unexpected as, according to him, there is no ambiguity in the law regarding the fact that a non-member of a political party has no locus standi to meddle into the affairs of the party and challenge what happens therein.
“The Court of Appeal verdict dismissing the case filed against the APC governorship candidate in Cross River State by the PDP and its candidate was a welcome development. The judgement was not unexpected because the law is clear. The law is very clear. And so, we expected nothing less. If you are not a member of a political party, you don’t have the right to complain of what transpires in the party. For us, this is another irritation out of the way of victory for Prince Bassey Otu come March 11, 2023,” Ndoma-Egba stated.
Onor and PDP had appealed the judgement of the lower court that threw out the suit seeking the disqualification of Otu, the APC guber flag bearer and his running mate, Rt. Hon. Peter Odey, on the grounds that Odey apart from not being a member of the APC was also a British citizen.
In a unanimous decision by the three justices of the Appellate Court, R.C Agbo, O.F Omoleye and B.B Aliyu, Justice O.F. Omoleye who delivered the judgement on behalf of others submitted that “The domestic affairs of a political party is an internal issue of that political party and the court will not dabble into the internal affairs of any political party.
“The issue of leadership and membership of political parties is an internal affair of a political party and the court will not interfere in it. The court therefore, cannot be dragged into the internal issue of if the 3rd defendant (Rt. Hon. Peter Odey) is a member of the 1st defendant (APC) or not. This therefore means that the action of the Appellants (Onor and PDP) is not justiceable. This matter is therefore struck out for lacking in merit and a cost of N500, 000 awarded against the Appellants.”
Prince Otu, believed to be the leading guber candidate in Cross River, was a member of the Green Chamber from 2003 to 2011, and represented Cross River South in the Red Chamber between 2011 and 2015, during which, he occupied different committee chairmanship positions, made valuable inputs to debates on national issues and meaningfully affected the lives of the people of his constituency with the execution of several projects and empowerment programmes
SPEECH DELIVERED BY H.E BABATUNDE RAJI FASHOLA, SAN AT THE OFFICIAL COMMISSIONING OF THE FEDERAL SECRETARIAT COMPLEX IN BUKAR SIDI, ALONG JOS ROAD , LAFIA, NASARAWA, STATE ON SATURDAY, 4TH FEBRUARY2023
Mr President, on behalf of the honourable Minister of State, Works and Housing, the Permanent Secretary and all the directors and members of staff of the Ministry of Works and Housing, I welcome you to the site of the Federal Secretariat Complex in Lafia, Nasarawa State and say with pride that we delivered on your mandate.
I also wish to state that we did not do it alone. It has taken the effort of an entire village to complete this project.
Members of this village include my colleagues in the Federal Executive Council, who voted for this project to be resurrected and completed, the Chairmen of the Senate and House committees on Housing and their members who oversighted the project and the National Assembly as a whole who approved the budget.
Other prominent members of that village include various permanent secretaries and directors of public building in a ministry who kept faith and pushed against the odds.
The village was large enough to accommodate the state Government actors to work with Federal Government actors; and the Governors of Nasarawa State from H.E Tanko Almakura and later, Engr. Abdullahi Sule, the incumbent Governor, deserve acknowledgement and commendation for their contributions and support.
The peaceful environment provided by the people of Nasarawa enabled the private sector, through our contractor, Messrs Faplins Nigeria Limited to operate within our village of development.
Interestingly, the Company is owned by one Chief Linus Ukachukwu, M.O.N, a leading light of the main opposition party in Anambra State.
Although your emergence as President threw Chief Ukachukwu’s party out of Government, you did not throw Chief Ukachukwu out of business.
Mr. President, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, the fulfilment of your mandate has delivered, a built-up area of 6,756 m2 of 402 offices, 300parking spaces on 10.9 hectares of land.
In the process, 172 persons were indirectly employed and engaged during the construction process. The furniture was produced in Nigeria by an indigenous contractor in conformity with your Executive Order No. 5 aimed at promoting local content.
Since the completion, we have engaged a firm of facility managers to undertake scheduled and preventive maintenance in the spirit of Executive Order No.11 for the promotion and development of the maintenance economy, as part of our job creation and prosperity initiative to lift people out of poverty.
I am able to report that the maintenance economy is also spreading across Nigeria because we have, in addition to rehabilitating 28 existing federal secretariats, employed facility managers for them and each facility manager now employs at least 40 members in sustainable long-term jobs which were not available before the maintenance programme commenced.
Mr. President, my team and I are grateful for the privilege and opportunity to serve in this capacity and for your support throughout the period.
Thank you.
Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
Honourable Minister of Works and Housing
PRESS RELEASE
LAGOS, FIRS SIGN JOINT TAX AUDIT AGREEMENT
- Sanwo-Olu: ‘Collaboration to check double taxation, widen tax base’
Lagos State Government has sealed a bilateral agreement with the Federal Government to harmonise tax administration, raise system efficiency and proffer solution to challenges of multiple taxation.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Monday, presided over a ceremony where Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Lagos State Inland Revenue Service (LIRS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a joint tax audit system that will address duplication of efforts and facilitate exchange of data that are relevant to enforcement of extant tax laws.
Minister of State for Finance, Mr. Clem Agba, witnessed the agreement signing event held the State House in Marina, which also had Commissioner for Finance, Dr. Rabiu Olowo, Lagos Attorney General, Mr. Moyosore Onigbanjo, SAN, Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Hon. Sam Egube, and Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Gbenga Omotoso, in attendance.
Aside from offering joint jurisdiction in tax audit and bringing about an integrated system of tax compliance, the scope of the MoU also empowered both tax authorities to exchange information sourced under International Tax Treaties in line with global protocols, while creating a common tax collection platform to eliminate double taxation.
Sanwo-Olu described the collaboration as “epoch-making”, noting that the conversation for the harmonization of the two agencies’ mandates started about a year ago, based on the need to forge a common front in widening the tax net to raise the country’s tax to GDP ratio.
The Governor observed that Nigeria had maintained an unimpressive tax to GDP ratio of between 6 to 8 per cent, despite the yearly record-breaking turnovers by both FIRS and LIRS. This, he said, has mounted pressure on the nation’s resources and created an imbalance in Government’s expenditure. Sanwo-Olu said Nigeria must operate at the same level with other nations within sub-Saharan Africa doing between 14 and 15 per cent in tax to GDP ratio in order to support the Government’s development programmes and improve accountability.
He said: “We have just witnessed an epoch-making ceremony between the Federal Inland Revenue Service and Lagos Inland Revenue Service. This collaboration did not just happen by chance; it is a conversation we started about a year ago with the chairman of FIRS when both parties reviewed their successes and limitations. It was clear there was a need for a relationship to be consummated. Both FIRS and LIRS have been breaking records of their tax collection and administration yearly, but this is not enough. We have an unimpressive tax to GDP ratio, which ranges between six and eight per cent; this is totally unacceptable.
“Studies have shown that there would be better service delivery to the citizens and improvement in efficiency of tax collection when the two agencies work together. The cost of tax collection would be reduced, we would see better customer satisfaction and more resources would be generated for the Government to deliver more dividends of democracy. For us as a State, we are humble by this collaborative effort and we believe our citizens will be the ultimate beneficiaries of this initiative. The MoU is in the best interest of the public, as it affirms the reason why we need to come together and strengthen the cordial working relationship between the two agencies.”
Sanwo-Olu said the bilateral agreement was initiated not to overburden tax-paying citizens, stressing that the objective was to widen the tax base and bring more people to equitability. With a sustainable tax administration system, the Governor said more resources would accrue to the Government to reduce social burden and take care of the vulnerable.
The Governor observed that the sizes of Lagos’s budget were significantly lesser than what the State should be appropriating. He said the market study indicated a N5 trillion budget benchmark for the State, given the size of the State economy’s GDP. With the collaborative effort, Sanwo-Olu said Lagos may have been on the right track to raise its budget level to what it should be.
He said: “Our Government will continue to raise the bar, so that we can do a lot more with more resources. This collaboration is not to overburden our citizens; it is to widen the tax base and bring people to equitability. This will reduce social burden, because we would have enough resources to take care of the vulnerable.
“This collaboration is a win-win for both agencies and our citizens. It means the Government can do a lot more for the residents and provide resources to take care of their needs in health, in education, safety and security, and in everything that makes life meaningful to our people. We are set to remove red tape in the entire tax administration. This is another beginning for a mutually beneficial relationship between FIRS and LIRS.”
Agba said the dwindling oil revenue necessitated the need to expand the nation’s tax base to fund development projects. The minister said duplication of efforts by both agencies would lower the efficiency of both Lagos and Federal governments in resource generation, while limiting both parties to collect tax.
The collaboration, the minister said, would not short-change each party, but rather bolster the parties to raise finance to bridge infrastructure gap in their respective domains.
FIRS chairman, Mr. Mohammed Nami, said the MoU would help both agencies to build capacity in respective areas of specialisation while helping Lagos and Federal governments to raise revenues for projects and development programmes.
“We will work together as a team during the investigation and have an automatic exchange of information. With this, we will be able to carry out our mandate seamlessly. As part of the joint operation, we will be able to implement presumptive tax as far as issues of tax administration are concerned,” Nami said.
LIRS chairman, Mr. Ayo Subair, said the collaboration would bring about quick solutions to tax disputes and incidents, thereby creating seamless reconciliation of issues. He listed other expectations to include reduced administration costs for both tax authorities and the elimination of hiding places for recalcitrant taxable persons and entities.
SIGNED
GBOYEGA AKOSILE
CHIEF PRESS SECRETARY
06 FEBRUARY 2023
PRESS RELEASE
SANWO-OLU COMMISERATES WITH FUNKE AKINDELE OVER MOTHER’S DEATH
Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu has sympathized with the deputy governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Lagos, Ms Funke Akindele over the death of her beloved mother, Dr. RB Adebanjo-Akindele.
Governor Sanwo-Olu, in a statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Gboyega Akosile on Tuesday said it is often hard to find the right words at a time like this for someone who has lost a beloved person, noting that losing mothers is one of the deepest sorrows for man.
The Governor prayed for peace, comfort, courage and love for Funke, his immediate siblings, the Adebanjo and Akindele families as they go through a most difficult period of mourning of the dead.
He said: “My heart goes out to Funke, friends of the Adebanjo and Akindele families on the demise of their daughter, mother and grandmother, Dr. RB Adebanjo-Akindele who answered the ultimate call today, Tuesday 7th of February, 2023.
“Death of loved ones, whenever it happens, is usually a very painful episode but we must be consoled by the good life lived by the deceased person. We should relish in the beautiful memories the dead left behind for us.
The Governor urged the PDP Deputy Governorship candidate, to be comforted by the good life that her late mother lived and continue to pray for the repose of Dr. RB Adebanjo-Akindele.
“On behalf of my family and the good people of Lagos State, I hereby express my heartfelt condolences to the entire families and friends of Adebanjo and Akindele.
May God grant the soul of the departed eternal rest and the families the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.
SIGNED
GBOYEGA AKOSILE
CHIEF PRESS SECRETARY
TO THE GOVERNOR OF LAGOS STATE
7TH FEBRUARY, 2023
Rivers PDP 2023 Election Campaign Council Faults Allegation By Atiku’s Supporters
The Director-General of Rivers State Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) Campaign Council, Bro Felix Obuah has dismissed as hollow and baseless the allegation by Atiku’s supporters in the state against Governor Nyesom Wike as the mastermind of the arrest of some members of the group by the police.
Bro. Obuah who picked holes in the allegation said the statement contradicted itself with the differing positions of the spokesman for the group, Victor Moses and the spokesman of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council in the State, Leloonu Nwibubasa who denied knowledge of the incident to a news outlet in Port Harcourt.
This shows, according to the PDP 2023 Election Campaign Council that the reason for the police arrest if there was any arrest at all, could be personal and had nothing to do with politics let alone involving the Executive Governor of the State who could not descend so low to get involved in infantile campaign groups.
Bro. Obuah, the immediate State PDP Chairman and frontline politician in Rivers State described as unfortunate the evolving culture of drawing attention to unfounded issues and inconsequential persons by mentioning the name, and pointing accusing fingers at the person of the Governor simply to make news.
He however, expressed joy that the security operatives and law enforcement agencies are not lost to this misnomer and will always bring their professional expertise to bear in handling such matters.
Bro. Obuah also warned those in this habit of fomenting trouble in the state for whatever motives to note that misinformation and disinformation remain a serious offence and breach of the Nigerian law.
The PDP Campaign Council DG, appealed to the supporters of the Rivers PDP governorship candidate, Sir Siminalayi Fubara and all the other PDP candidates in the state to disregard such insinuations meant to distract their attention and remain vigilant and steadfast in their support for Governor Nyesom Wike and the State PDP-led government.
Signed
Jerry Needam
Secretary,
Directorate of Publicity & Communication
Rivers State PDP Campaign Council
Tuesday, February 7, 2023