Adoke, CBN ask court to reject Okigbo report!!!!
I'm scratching my head, trying to figure out who's trying to fool the other. This morning on my Radio Show I asked people their opinion on the AGF's decision to oppose the suit demanding for IBB's trial based on the Okigbo Panel report.
To my greatest shock many of my callers were pro-IBB elements who were pillorying the current president for allegedly playing politics by using the Okigbo Report as a political tool against IBB. Try as I did to point out thta givernment agencie (AGF's Office and CBN) were oposing the probe the pro-IBB callers stil maintained their stance. Yet a few people saw it as a reflecton of the fact that the current AGF was not serious about fighting corruption and also a sign of weakness on the part of Goodluck Jonathan.
Whichever way, I think something is really fishy here. Who's pulling the stunts here? Who be the maga?
Below is how Daily Trust Newspaper capture the story:
The Attorney-General of the Federation Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have asked an Abuja Federal High Court to reject the Okigbo panel report saying that it is not admissible in law because it has not yet been published in a gazette and no white paper has been issued on it.
I'm scratching my head, trying to figure out who's trying to fool the other. This morning on my Radio Show I asked people their opinion on the AGF's decision to oppose the suit demanding for IBB's trial based on the Okigbo Panel report.
To my greatest shock many of my callers were pro-IBB elements who were pillorying the current president for allegedly playing politics by using the Okigbo Report as a political tool against IBB. Try as I did to point out thta givernment agencie (AGF's Office and CBN) were oposing the probe the pro-IBB callers stil maintained their stance. Yet a few people saw it as a reflecton of the fact that the current AGF was not serious about fighting corruption and also a sign of weakness on the part of Goodluck Jonathan.
Whichever way, I think something is really fishy here. Who's pulling the stunts here? Who be the maga?
Below is how Daily Trust Newspaper capture the story:
The Attorney-General of the Federation Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have asked an Abuja Federal High Court to reject the Okigbo panel report saying that it is not admissible in law because it has not yet been published in a gazette and no white paper has been issued on it.
The AGF and CBN were sued in September 2010 by six civil society groups seeking information on the way in which an alleged sum of $12.4 billion accrued from oil windfall between 1988 and 1994 was spent.
The groups are the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP); Women Advocates and Documentation Center (WARDC); Committee for Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), Access to Justice (AJ), Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA), and Partnership for Justice.
In their separate preliminary objections filed last week, both parties argued that the plaintiffs have no locus standi; and are not juristic persons as they are not registered.
In the suit, the plaintiffs averred that the government had set up the Okigbo panel in 1994 to investigate CBN’s activities and recommend measures for the re-organization of the Bank and one of its findings was that the $12.5 billion in the Dedicated and Special Accounts had been depleted to $200 million by June 1994.
They also averred that as a result of the mismanagement of the said sum of $12.2 billion by the military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, the Okigbo Panel recommended that the Dedicated and Special Accounts be discontinued.
They are seeking an order of mandamus compelling the AGF and the CBN to publish detailed statement of account relating to the spending of $12.4 billion oil windfall between 1988 and 1994, and to publish in major national newspapers a copy of the statement of account as well as an order directing them to diligently prosecute anyone suspected of corruption and mismanagement of money.
They equally want an order directing the respondents to return to the federal account any money which is the subject matter of corruption and to also direct them to provide adequate reparation, which may take the form of restitution, compensation, satisfaction or guarantees of non-repetition to millions of Nigerians that have been denied their human rights as a result of their failure to ensure transparency and accountability in the spending of the $12.4 billion oil windfall.
For significant excerpts of it (Executive Summary, several pages of Chapters 1, the whole of Chapter 6 and most of Chapter 7 for now), please see pdf files in: http://www.nigerianmuse.com/nigeriawatch/okigbo/
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