Rita Odafe
The Supreme Court has rejected a case brought by all 36 state governments and the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) concerning the federal government’s management of recovered looted funds.
In a ruling delivered on Friday, a unanimous panel of seven justices determined that the case had been improperly filed in the highest court.
Justice Chidiebere Uwa authored the lead judgment, which was presented by Justice Mohammed Idris. The court ruled that the plaintiffs had incorrectly sought its jurisdiction.
The court stated that the matter in question, designated as SC/CV/395/2021, fell under the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court.
The plaintiffs contended that “from 2015 to 2021, when the case was initiated, the federal government secured both international and local forfeiture, recovery, and repatriation of stolen assets amounting to N1,836,906,543,658.73, including approximately 167 properties, 450 cars, 300 trucks, 20,000,000 barrels of crude oil worth over N450 million,” which they claimed the government failed to deposit as mandated by the Constitution.
They accused the federal government of unlawfully redirecting these funds into the Consolidated Revenue Accounts (CRA) and other unspecified accounts, bypassing the Federation Account.
The states maintained that the CRA is intended to receive the federal government’s share from the Federation Account, along with other federal revenues and state-specific funds.
They argued that federal receipts allotted to the CRAs should encompass income derived from licenses, land and administrative fees, earnings from sales, rents, interest from government investments, and refunds from states, among others.
The plaintiffs highlighted that the creation of the Asset Recovery Account and the Interim Forfeiture Recovery Account, designated for revenue from recovered assets, contradicts constitutional stipulations.
They pointed out that numerous asset recoveries have taken place since 2015 through various anti-corruption organizations, including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
Citing sections 162(1), 162(10), and 80 of the Constitution, along with section 2 of the Finance (Control and Management) Act of 1958, the plaintiffs asserted that recovered funds should be classified as revenues owed to the Federation Account rather than the federal government’s Consolidated Revenue Account.
They claimed it is “unconstitutional to redirect revenue that should go into the Federation Account to the Federal Government’s Consolidated Revenue Account or any other account, or to use it for other purposes,” according to the plaintiffs.
They requested the court to declare that, under Sections 162(1) and 162(10) of the Constitution, all income derived from confiscated or forfeited assets must be deposited into the Federation Account for the benefit of federal, state, and local governments.
Additionally, they asked the court to mandate the remittance of N1.8 trillion in cash and N450 billion in non-cash recovered loot since 2015 into the Federation Account.
The plaintiffs further sought to compel the defendants to provide a comprehensive account of the recovered assets that have not been deposited in the Federation Account by the President and other relevant government officials and agencies.
Finally, they want the Supreme Court to instruct the federal government, via the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission (RMFAC), to establish a framework for distributing the recovered assets among the various federating units.
