SERAP To Sue Nigeria’s 36 Governors Over N30Billion Each Allocated To Address Food Scarcity In States

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a civil society organization, has issued a threat to sue Nigerian state governors over the allocation of N30 billion each to address the high cost of food in their respective states.

SERAP said the state governors should be compelled to account for the N30 billion received from the Federal Government outside their normal allocations.

“We're suing Nigeria's state governors to compel them to account for the N30 billion that Mr Godswill Akpabio reportedly said each governor has received from the Federal Government [outside their normal allocations] to address the high cost of food in their states,” SERAP said on Wednesday.

Senate President Godwin Akpabio on Wednesday stated that the 36 state governors in the country had received an additional N30 billion from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to tackle the food scarcity situation in the country.

The Senate President who said this during one of the plenary sessions of the federal lawmakers described the protests held in some major cities in the country against rising hunger and hardship as sponsored by political stakeholders.

Akpabio added that the newly released funds for the state governors were different from their monthly allocations and urged them not to divert the funds to another use different from solving foodstuff scarcity.

He said, “We can see a lot of protests here and there, most of those sponsored protests are not aware of the kind of efforts being made by this Senate to tackle the situation together with a joint management team of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

"I must say that unverified report has it that each of the state governments in the last few months has received additional N30 billion from Federal Inland Revenue Service, outside their normal allocation from the federation account to assist them in ameliorating the food situation, we believed that every state government should utilise the funds so received towards ensuring that food is available.”

“This Senate will not rubber-stamp anything that we feel is not in the interest of Nigeria,” he added.