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.
In a judgment on Friday, a seven-member panel of the Supreme Court was unanimous in holding 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.
It held that the subject matter of the suit, marked: SC/CV/395/2021, was within the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court.
The plaintiffs had claimed that “between 2015 and 2021 when the suit was filed, the FG has secured both international and municipal forfeiture, recovery and repatriation of “stolen assets” in the sum of NI,836,906,543,658.73, about 167 properties, 450 cars, 300 trucks and cargoes, and 20,000,000 barrels of crude oil worth over N450million,” which it allegedly failed to remit as required by the Constitution.
They alleged that instead of paying the cash into the Federation Account, the FG 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 are 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.
They noted that since 2015, “numerous recoveries of illegally acquired assets have been secured through anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies,” including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the Nigerian Police Force and the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation.
The plaintiffs, citing sections 162(1), 162 (10) and 80 of the Constitution and section 2 of the Finance (Control and Management) Act, 1958, argued that recovered funds qualify as revenue payable to the Federation Account instead of the Consolidated Revenue Account of the Federal Government.
They stated that 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, among others, declare, “that by the provisions of Section 162(1) and Section 162(10) of the Constitution of all income, returns, proceeds or receipts howsoever described derived from confiscated, forfeited and/or recovered assets constitute revenue of the federal republic of Nigeria, must be remitted to the Federation Account for the collective benefit of the federal, state and local governments.
They urged the court to issue a d 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 are not remitted into the Federation Account by the President, as well as all the relevant officials and agencies of government.
They also want the apex 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.