The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP has revealed that it has obtained the leave of the court to apply for an order of mandamus to compel the President Bola Tinubu-led government to probe the alleged missing and unaccounted $2.1 billion and N3.1 trillion oil revenue under former President, Muhammadu Buhari.
Earlier this year, in June SERAP filed a lawsuit asking President Tinubu to set up a presidential panel of enquiry to promptly probe the grim allegations that US$2.1 billion and N3.1 trillion public funds of oil revenues and budgeted as fuel subsidy payments are missing and unaccounted for between 2016 and 2019, as documented by the Auditor-General of the Federation.
The organisation had urged the President to “name and shame anyone suspected to be responsible for the alleged widespread and systemic corruption in the use of oil revenues and the management of public funds budgeted as fuel subsidy and to ensure their effective prosecution as well as the full recovery of any proceeds of crime.”
It also urged him “to promptly, thoroughly, independently, transparently and effectively probe all fuel subsidy paid by successive governments since the return of democracy in 1999, and to use any recovered proceeds of crime as palliatives to address the impact of any subsidy removal on poor Nigerians.”
However, in an update on its move on the matter, SERAP in a post on its X handle (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday night said, the group has obtained the leave of the court to apply for an order of mandamus to compel the Tinubu administration to probe the allegations of missing and unaccounted for oil revenues between 2016 and 2019.
