The Supreme Court has struck out a suit by the 36 states’ governments and the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) challenging the Federal Government’s application of recovered looted funds.
Delivering the judgment, a seven-member panel unanimously held that the suit was wrongly instituted before the apex court.
In the lead judgment, prepared by Justice Chidiebere Uwa, but read by Justice Mohammed Idris, the apex court held that the plaintiffs wrongly invoked its jurisdiction.
The apex court held that the subject matter of the suit was within the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court.
“The subject matter of the suit was within the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court,” the apex court held.
The plaintiffs had claimed that the Federal Government secured forfeiture, recovery, and repatriation of stolen assets worth billions of naira between 2015 and 2021.
However, they alleged that instead of paying the cash into the Federation Account, the Federal Government illegally diverted it into the Consolidated Revenue Accounts (CRA) and other accounts not recognised by the Nigerian Constitution.
The states argued that the CRA is the account into which FG’s share from the Federation Account, other federal earnings, and funds belonging to specific state governments were paid.
They added that other federal earnings payable to the CRAs include receipts from federal government licenses and land revenue, administrative fees, earnings and sales, rent of government property, interests from federal government investments, repayments from state governments, Personal Income Tax of Armed Forces, and others.
The plaintiffs stated that by establishing the Asset Recovery Account and Interim Forfeiture Recovery Account, into which revenue from recovered assets was to be paid, the Asset Recovery Regulation contradicts the provisions of the Constitution. Citing sections 162(1), 162 (10), and 80 of the Constitution and section 2 of the Finance (Control and Management) Act, 1958, the plaintiffs argued that recovered funds qualify as revenue payable to the Federation Account instead of the Consolidated Revenue Account of the Federal Government.
“It is unconstitutional to remit or divert revenue payable into the Federation Account to the Consolidated Revenue Account of the Federal Government or any other account whatsoever, or to apply the said revenue to any other purpose,” the plaintiffs argued.
The plaintiffs prayed the court to declare that recovered funds constitute revenue of the federal republic of Nigeria and must be remitted to the Federation Account for the collective benefit of the federal, state, and local governments.
They also urged the court to issue an order compelling the remittance of N1.8 trillion (cash) and N450 billion (non-cash) in recovered loot since 2015 into the federation account.
The plaintiffs also prayed the court to compel the defendants to give a detailed account of the recovered assets that were not remitted into the Federation Account by the President, as well as all the relevant officials and agencies of government.
They also wanted the Supreme Court to compel the FG, through the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission (RMFAC), to design the modalities for distributing recovered assets among the federating units
