Headline
133m Poor Nigerians: Buhari Dragged To Court Over Failure To Probe Spending On ‘Social Intervention Programmes’

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has filed a lawsuit against President Muhammadu Buhari over “the failure to thoroughly, effectively and transparently investigate spending on all social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programmes and projects executed between 2015 and 2022.”
Joined in the suit as Respondent is the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN).
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 N500 billion yearly on ‘social investment programmes.’ Half of all poor people in the country are children.
In the suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/2357/2022 filed last Friday at the Federal High Court, Abuja, SERAP is asking the court to “direct and compel President Buhari to thoroughly and transparently investigate the spending on all social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programs and projects executed between 2015 and 2022.”
SERAP is also asking the court to “direct and compel President Buhari to ensure that suspected perpetrators of corruption and mismanagement of public funds meant to take care of the poor face prosecution, as appropriate, and any stolen public funds are recovered.”
In the suit, SERAP is arguing that, “Nigerians have the right to be free from poverty. Allegations of corruption in social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programmes pose both direct and indirect threats to human rights, and contribute to extreme poverty in the country.”
SERAP is also arguing that, “Investigating the allegations of corruption in the spending on social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programmes and projects and recovering any stolen public funds would serve the public interest.”
According to SERAP, “The Federal Government has a legal responsibility to ensure transparency and accountability in how public funds are spent, to reduce vulnerability to corruption and mismanagement.”
READ ALSO: Buhari Opens Up On Death Claim, ‘Jubril From Sudan’
SERAP is also arguing that, “The government has legal obligations to effectively and progressively address and combat extreme poverty as a matter of human rights.”
The suit filed on behalf of SERAP by its lawyers Kolawole Oluwadare, Kehinde Oyewumi, and Blessing Ogwuche, read in part: “The failure to address extreme poverty has resulted in high levels of inequality, and serious violations of economic and social rights of socially and economically vulnerable Nigerians.”
“The NBS report suggests a grave violation of the public trust, and the lack of political will by the government to uphold the country’s constitutional and international human rights obligations.”
“The consequences of corruption are felt by citizens on a daily basis. Corruption exposes them to additional costs to pay for health, education and administrative services.”
“Corruption undermines economic development of the country, trapping the majority of Nigerians in poverty and depriving them of employment opportunities.”
“Extreme poverty is the greatest denial of the exercise of human rights, as it denies millions of Nigerians not only their economic and social rights but also civil and political rights such as the rights to life, human dignity, and political participation.”
“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.”
READ ALSO: Your Christmas Message Is Meaningless, Blackmail, Group Takes Swipe On Buhari
“The report that 133 million Nigerians are poor suggests corruption and mismanagement in the spending of trillion 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 report also shows that the purported social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programmes are clearly not working. It also shows a failure by the government to uphold the constitutionally and internationally guaranteed human rights of the Nigerian people.”
“The government has a sacred duty to ensure transparency and accountability in the spending of the country’s resources, including the spending of public funds on social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programmes and projects.”
“Section 14(2)(b) of the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 [as amended] provides that, ‘the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.’”
“Under Section 16(1)(a)(b), the government has the obligations to ‘harness the resources of the nation and promote national prosperity and an efficient, a dynamic and self-reliant economy’, and to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen.’”
“Nigeria has also ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which recognize legally enforceable economic and social rights, such as the rights to education, health, safe food and clean water, security, and shelter.”
“Successive governments have systematically neglected social and economic rights, and failed to address severe poverty and inequality in the country.”
“The allegations corruption and mismanagement in the spending of public funds on social safety-nets and poverty alleviation programmes and projects would clearly amount to a fundamental breach of national anticorruption laws and the country’s international anticorruption obligations.”
“The 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) Survey reveals that 65% of the poor (86 million people) live in the North, while 35% (nearly 47 million) live in the South. Poverty levels across States vary significantly, with the incidence of multidimensional poverty ranging from a low of 27% in Ondo to a high of 91% in Sokoto.”
READ ALSO: Groups Drag President Buhari To Court Over New NDDC Board
“The NBS also shows that over half of the population of Nigeria are multidimensionally poor and cook with dung, wood or charcoal, rather than cleaner energy. High deprivations are also apparent nationally in sanitation, time to healthcare, food insecurity, and housing.”
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.
VANGUARD
Headline
FULL LIST: US Set To Carry Out Four Executions This Week

A Florida man convicted of murdering two women he hired for sex was put to death by lethal injection on Tuesday, one of four executions to be carried out in the United States this week.
Samuel Smithers, 72, was sentenced to death in 1999 for the 1996 killings of Christy Cowan and Denise Roach in Tampa. They had been beaten and strangled and their bodies were found in a pond.
Smithers was executed at a Florida state prison at 6:15 pm (2215 GMT), the 14th execution in the southern state this year.
Another convicted murderer was also put to death by lethal injection in the midwestern state of Missouri on Tuesday.
READ ALSO:Police Bust Child Trafficking Syndicate In Rivers, Rescue Babies
The execution of Lance Shockley, 48, was carried out at 6:13 pm (2313 GMT) for the 2005 murder of a police sergeant, Carl Graham.
Graham was gunned down in an ambush at his home. The officer had been investigating a fatal car accident involving Shockley at the time.
Shockley maintained his innocence but his appeals were rejected by numerous courts, including the Supreme Court. Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe rejected his clemency request on Monday.
Two other executions are scheduled this week.
Charles Crawford, 59, is to be put to death by lethal injection in Mississippi on Wednesday for the 1994 rape and murder of Kristy Ray, a 20-year-old college student.
READ ALSO:China’s Trade Surges Despite US Tariff Threats
Richard Djerf, 55, is to be executed by lethal injection in Arizona on Friday for the brutal 1993 murders of four members of a Phoenix family.
In a letter last month apologizing for the crime, Djerf said he was ready to die and would not seek clemency.
“If I can’t find reason to spare my life, what reason would anyone else have?” he wrote.
There have been 37 executions in the United States this year, the most since 2013, when 39 inmates were put to death.
Florida has carried out the most executions with 14, followed by Texas with five and South Carolina and Alabama with four.
READ ALSO:Tinubu Appoints New Heads For Key Agencies
Thirty-one of this year’s executions have been carried out by lethal injection, two by firing squad and four by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.
The use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment has been denounced by United Nations experts as cruel and inhumane.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.
President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and, on his first day in office, called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”
Headline
Welcome Home, Israel Confirms Return Of 20 Hostages From Gaza

Israel said that the last 20 living hostages released by Hamas on Monday had arrived in the country.
“Welcome home,” the foreign ministry wrote in a series of posts on X, hailing the return of Matan Angrest, Gali Berman, Ziv Berman, Elkana Bohbot, Rom Braslavski, Nimrod Cohen, David Cunio, Ariel Cunio, Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa Dalal, Maxim Herkin, Eitan Horn, Segev Kalfon, Bar Kuperstein, Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Yosef Haim Ohana, Alon Ohel, Avinatan Or and Matan Zangauker.
READ ALSO:Trump Gives Update On Israel, Hamas Peace Deal
AFP
Headline
20 Members Of Gang Blacklisted By US Escape Guatemala Prison

Twenty members of a gang designated a “foreign terrorist organisation” by the United States have escaped from detention in Guatemala, a prison chief said Sunday.
The members of the Barrio 18 gang “evaded security controls” at the Fraijanes II facility, prison director Ludin Godinez said at a news conference.
He received “an intelligence report” on Friday warning about the “possible escape” from the prison, which is southeast of the capital, Guatemala City.
Godinez said they were investigating possible acts of corruption.
READ ALSO:China’s Trade Surges Despite US Tariff Threats
Washington last month blacklisted Barrio 18, an El Salvador-based gang which has a reputation for violence and extortion, as part of its crackdown on drug trafficking.
The US embassy in Guatemala condemned the prison escape as “utterly unacceptable.”
“The United States designated members of this heinous group as the terrorists they are and will hold accountable anyone who has provided, provides, or decides to provide material support to these fugitives or other gang members,” the embassy said on X.
It called on the Guatemalan government to “act immediately and vigorously to recapture these terrorists.”
READ ALSO:US Threatens To Sanction Countries That Vote For Shipping Carbon Tax
According to Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez, there are about 12,000 gang members and collaborators in Guatemala, while another 3,000 are in prison.
The country’s homicide rate has increased from 16.1 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2024 to 17.65 this year, more than double the world average, according to the Centre for National Economic Research.
According to the Salvadoran government, the gangs Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13, are responsible for the deaths of about 200,000 people over three decades.
The two gangs once controlled an estimated 80 percent of El Salvador, which had one of the highest homicide rates in the world.
- News2 days ago
BREAKING: Rev Uma Ukpai Is Dead
- News4 days ago
FULL LIST: Newly Released Subject Combinations For WAEC 2026 Examination WAEC
- News3 days ago
Edo: Council Boss Attacked During Traffic Intervention At MUYI Line
- News2 days ago
JUST IN: FG Enforces No-work-no-pay On Striking ASUU Members
- Politics2 days ago
Tinubu Under Fire Over Presidential Pardon For Drug Offenders
- Headline4 days ago
Top 10 Most Powerful Countries In The World In 2025 And Why
- Politics5 days ago
Enugu Gov Mbah Set to Dump PDP
- Headline5 days ago
Transgender Woman Jailed For Deceiving Man About Gender In UK
- Metro2 days ago
BREAKING: Lagos Re-arraigns Kidnapper Evans Over Police Officers’ Killing
- News3 days ago
ASUU Declares Two-week Strike, Orders Members To Down Tools On Monday