The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to thoroughly investigate how the ecological funds were spent by governments at all levels in Nigeria from 2001 to date.
SERAP made this call in an open letter which was signed by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare.
The letter advised President Buhari to direct the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, and appropriate anti-corruption agencies to promptly investigate the spending of the funds.
The Ecological fund is an intervention fund by the government of Nigeria to address the multifarious ecological challenges in various communities across the Country.
The prime objective of this initiative was to have a pool of funds that would be solely devoted to the funding of ecological projects to ameliorate serious ecological problems nationwide.
The letter from SERAP is backed by reports of ravaging flooding in some parts of the country which has resulted in the loss of over 600 lives, displacement of more than a million persons, and destruction of properties worth billions.
The most affected states include Anambra, Delta, Kogi, Rivers, Benue, Yobe, Cross River and Bayelsa.
SERAP urged Buhari to ensure that suspected perpetrators of corruption and mismanagement face prosecution as appropriate.
‘Irrespective of the cause of a threat to human rights, your government still has positive obligations to use all the means within its disposal to uphold the human rights of those affected’, he added.
‘Although ecological funds are shared across the three tiers of government, and emergency management agencies, the funds are managed and supervised by the federal government’.
Climate change, SERAP noted, has the potential to exacerbate existing threats to human rights in the country, with rising global temperatures jeopardising many people’s livelihoods, increasing their vulnerability to poverty and social deprivation.
SERAP further noted that Nigerians have the right to know how the public funds budgeted to address ecological challenges are spent.
Photo source: BBC
