A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt has struck out a suit seeking to compel the release of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) forensic audit report, describing the action as being filed against a non-existent government agency.
The suit was filed by Paul Ogbonna and another applicant on behalf of a civil society group, Social Action, against the Attorney General of the Federation.
The plaintiffs had approached the court in 2022 after the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs declined their request for access to the audit report.
The applicants initially sued the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, then under former minister Godswill Akpabio, now President of the Senate, but later amended their processes following the scrapping of the ministry by President Bola Tinubu upon assumption of office, joining the Attorney General of the Federation as the sole defendant.
Delivering judgment on Tuesday, Justice Turaki Mohammed struck out the case, holding that it was incompetent as it was directed at a non-existent agency.
Although no legal representation appeared for the Attorney General of the Federation during the ruling, counsel to the plaintiffs, Victor Nweke, expressed disappointment with the decision while speaking to journalists outside the courtroom.
Nweke said the applicants would return to court to pursue the matter further.
“The court has given a judgment in that suit today…When President Bola Tinubu took office, the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs was abolished.
“Leveraging on that, we applied because the earlier relief we were seeking was against the Ministry of the Niger Delta. So we refiled our processes and removed the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs from the suit.
“We retained the Attorney-General of the Federation, knowing too well that he is the number one law officer of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“We are not satisfied because the matter was not dismissed. It was merely struck out. So we will still come because the court has the requisite jurisdiction to equally entertain the matter again.
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“So we are going to file the suit again, and that information that the government has refused to give to us must be given because the Freedom of Information Act 2011 made it expressly clear that citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria are entitled to any document that is in the custody of any public office in Nigeria.”
One of the applicants, Paul Ogbonna, who serves as head of legal for Social Action in Rivers State, also criticised the ruling but acknowledged that the group is bound by it.
Ogbonna said the case was filed in the interest of transparency and accountability regarding public funds spent in the Niger Delta region.
“We are bound by the ruling of the Court, but it is unacceptable to us. We were convinced that Nigerians should have access to the Forensic Audit Report.
“NDDC is a public institution, and therefore, for more than a decade, billions of naira were sunk into the commission to fast-track development in the region.
“And of course, the question of the development in the Niger Delta has been a problem in the Nigerian political discussion over the years.
So we felt that so much money hasn’t been sunk into the agency without commensurate results for the people.
“So the organisation, as an anti-corruption body, institutes this suit through those of us in the civil society for the forensic report to be made open so that Nigerians will know precisely what happened over the years, as a justification for public funds that have been released to the institution.
“Like I said, the judgment is unacceptable le to us. We shall take the necessary legal moves and continue our campaign. We must get to the end of it. The suit must be determined compulsively and conclusively one way or the other.
“We must continue to canvass and carry out programs that will deepen the anti-corruption campaign so that public institutions and individuals must be held responsible for their stewardship to the Nigerian people.”