A chieftain of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu State, Chief Stanley Okeke has dragged President Goodluck Jonathan before a Federal High Court in Abuja, asking it to compel the President to remove subsidy being paid on fuel in the country.
In the suit filed on 21 December, Okeke is also asking for a court order to make Jonathan refund the sum earlier appropriated and/or approved under the sub-head of fuel subsidy funds or money to the Federation Account because according to him, the sum canot be justified in the face of pervasive corruption, perennial fuel shortage and long queues in the country.
He also joined the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Dieziani Allison-Madueke and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as 2nd and 3rd respondents respectively.
He declared that the high level of abuse of the fuel subsidy cannot be stopped unless the Federal Government removed the policy wholly.
The plaintiff is also asking the court to mae an order directing the 3rd respondent to cease further payments of fuel subsidy money predicated on the corrupt, illegal and unlawful fuel subsidy regime.
Okeke is asking the court to declare that the fuel subsidy presently funded by the Federal Government is a waste of funds, and as such, unlawful and illegal to maintain same.
He also prayed the court to declare that the pervasive corruption inherent in the fuel subsidy scheme has caused untold hardship to the masses of the country and therefore is an abuse of the rights of Nigerians as guaranteed by the privision of the 1999 Constitution as amended:
- That the fuel subsidy scheme having failed to achieve the purpose for which it was meant should be outrightly abolished as same hs violated the Nigerian peoples’ rights as guaranteed by the provision of the 1999 Constitution.
- That the failure of the 2nd and 3rd defendants in their ministerial duties to ensure a corrupt-free subsidy regime is a breach of their public trust and a violation of their oaths of office as contained in the seventh schedule of the 1999 constitution.
He also asked the court to determine the following questions:
- Whether in view of the official corruption and abuse of office inherent in the fuel subsidy regime as evidenced by the in-going trial of certain individuals in the Federal High Court, Lagos, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is validly competent to order the removal and or abolish the fuel subsidy scheme;
- Whether consequent upon the perennial fuel shortages and the resultant long queues at our filling stations, it would be proper and lawful for the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to completely remove and abolish the fuel subsidy scheme;
- Whether having regards to the near infrastructural collapse in our country, it would be proper to re-channel funds meant for fuel subsidy scheme into building infrastrure, and;
- Whether the 2nd and 3rd defendants being appointees of the President by not ensuring a corrupt-free subsidy regime have not failed in their principal duty to Nigerians.
He deposed a 27-paragraph affidavit in which he stated that under President Goodluck Jonathan, the country now imports fuel from various oil-producing natons for local consumption by Nigerians and that said importation is highly subsidised by the Federal Government running into billions of naira.
He claimed that in December 2012, the President submitted a supplementary budget of N161bn to the National Assembly for the payment of additional fuel subsidy money to the fuel importers and marketers.
A date is yet to be fixed for the hearing of the case.