$12.4bn Oil windfall: Court adjourns judgement

Posted by admin Latest Politics, Oil Politics Friday, November 23rd, 2012

NOVEMBER 24, 2012 BY IHUOMA CHIEDOZIE, ABUJA

Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke
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An Abuja Federal High Court on Friday failed to deliver judgement in the suit over the missing $12.4bn oil windfall.

The court had scheduled judgement in the matter for Friday, but the Presiding Judge, Justice Gabriel Kolawole, eventually adjourned the judgement to Nov. 29, 2012.

The judgement had also been postponed on previous occasions.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project and five other groups, represented by Chief Femi Falana, instituted the suit against the Federal Government.

When the court resumed on Friday, the judge disclosed that the judgement was not ready as his attention had just been drawn to a fresh application filed by the AGF, challenging the jurisdiction of the court.

SERAP noted that it had received, and responded to the application.

Kolawole thus said that he would study the processes in his chamber, and deliver the judgement on Nov. 29.

The defendants are asking the court to dismiss the suit, arguing that only the Attorney General of the Federation, as a defender of public interest, had the right to seek information on the spending of the $12.4bn oil windfall and that the plaintiffs have no such right.

But the plaintiffs insisted that it was the failure of the AGF to carry out his duty in that respect that prompted their legal action against the FG in the first place.

A coalition of six civil society groups, led by SERAP, had in Sept. 2010, sued the AGF and the Central Bank of Nigeria, seeking information on how the $12.4bn oil windfall was spent.

The other plaintiffs in the suit are the Women Advocates and Documentation Centre; Human and Environmental Development Agenda; Access to Justice; Partnership for Justice, and Committee for the Defence of Human Rights.

Via Punchwp_posts