The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has given the Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani; the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, and other 35 state governors one-week ultimatum to provide the loan agreements and spending details of the loans “obtained by their states and the FCT.”
SERAP’s requests also included the “details and locations of projects executed with the loans,” which amount to N5.9 trillion and $4.6 billion.
This was disclosed in a statement signed by the organisation’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare; a copy of which was made available to the media on Sunday.
SERAP urged the state governors and the FCT minister to “widely publish copies” of its requests as this would help keep Nigerians in the know of how their states’ governments spent their loans, and also ensure that “persons with public responsibilities are answerable to the people for the performance of their duties in the management of public funds.”
SERAP also urged them to “promptly invite the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the spending of the domestic and external loans obtained by your state and the FCT.”
The organisation noted that its request followed the disclosure made by Sani, on Saturday, when he lamented the huge debt inherited from his predecessor, Nasir El-Rufai, on May 29, 2023.
Sani said the state is now left with a few amounts, not enough to pay salary, adding that his administration inherited a total of $587m, N85bn and 115 contract liabilities from the ex-governor.
