A Federal High Court in Lagos has
ordered a former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to
account for the N30tn which a former Governor of the Central Bank of
Nigeria, Prof. Charles Soludo, claimed went missing under her watch.
Justice Ibrahim Buba said ordering
Okonjo-Iweala to offer explanation on the allegedly missing money was
the only thing to do since she had failed to put in a valid defence
against a suit seeking an order, mandating her to account for the
allegedly missing money.
Soludo had, sometime ago, alleged that
“at least, N30tn was either stolen or unaccounted for, or grossly
mismanaged” over the years that Okonjo-Iweala was in office as the
Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance.
Following the allegation, a group,
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, had demanded an
explanation from Okonjo-Iweala under the Freedom of Information Act and
later filed a suit before Justice Buba after the ex-minister did not
oblige its request.
The Federal Government was joined as a respondent in the suit.
SERAP said in a statement on Sunday by
its Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni, that Justice Buba delivered
judgment in the suit last week, holding that Okonjo-Iweala had no legal
justification to ignore the request to account for the allegedly missing
N30tn.
http://www.punchng.com/account-missing-n30tn-court-tells-okonjo-iweala/
No comments:
Post a Comment