“Missing N30 trillion” lawsuit against me politically-motivated – Okonjo-Iweala

The Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has lambasted a civil society group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, for instituting a lawsuit against her over the claim by a former Central Bank governor, Chukwuma Soludo, that Nigeria has lost as much as N30 trillion to corruption and mismanagement.

Apart from describing the suit as spurious, the Minster said it was “the latest in the campaign of falsehood and politicization of the economy by persons and groups who are getting more desperate by the day, because the economy, despite their propaganda, was still standing and will continue to stand”.

SERAP had instituted the case against the Minister for “failure to provide information about spending of the alleged missing N30trillion”, which the group said represented “some accruable income to the Federal Government in the past four years”.

The suit, filed at the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos, followed a Freedom of Information request by the civil society group to the Minister dated February 2.

SERAP’s suit followed the disclosure by Mr. Soludo in an article that over N30trillion was missing, or stolen, or unaccounted for, or simply mismanaged under the minister’s watch.

As trustee of public funds, SERAP said Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala has a legal duty to render account on the missing trillion to the beneficiaries (Nigerians) of the trust, if and when called upon to do so.