The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to “promptly set up a presidential panel of inquiry to thoroughly, impartially, effectively and transparently investigate spending on all social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programmes and projects executed between 2015 and 2022.”

SERAP also urged him “to ensure the findings of any such investigation are widely published, and suspected perpetrators of corruption and mismanagement of public funds meant to take care of the poor should face prosecution as appropriate, if there is sufficient evidence, and any stolen public funds should be recovered.”

A recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows damning revelations that some 133 million Nigerians are poor, despite the government reportedly spending N500bn yearly on ‘social investment programmes.’

Half of all poor people in the country are children.

In the letter dated November 19 by SERAP’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation said, “The report suggests a grave violation of the public trust, and the lack of political will to genuinely address poverty, and uphold your government’s constitutional and international human rights obligations.”

SERAP said, “The report that 133 million Nigerians are poor suggests corruption and mismanagement in the spending of trillions of naira on social safety nets and poverty alleviation programmes, including the reported disbursement of over $700 million from the repatriated Abacha looted funds to these programmes.”
The organisation further said, ”Your government has legal obligations to effectively and progressively address and combat extreme poverty as a matter of human rights.”

SERAP said, “The failure to address extreme poverty has resulted in high levels of inequality, and serious violations of economic and social rights of Nigerians, particularly the socially and economically vulnerable sector of the population.”

The letter, copied to Mr. Olivier DE SCHUTTER, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, read in part: “These grim revelations by the NBS show the failure to fulfil your oft-repeated promise to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty, and that no one will be left behind.”