Prominent lawyer and human rights advocate, Mr Femi Falana said he will institute a legal action against the Nigerian Government if it proceed with its plan to take credit facilities to finance the 2016 budget.
Mr Falana, in a letter to the minister of finance, advised the government to recover debts owed it by different groups and institutions rather than borrowing fresh loans that will further burdened Nigerians.
He accused the government of applying for a $2.5 billion loan from the World Bank and $1 billion from the African Development Bank to finance the 2016 Budget, in spite of Nigeria’s profile of $64 billion.
In the letter, the fiery lawyer insisted that said available records show that the Federal Government is owed nothing less than $66.5 billion, including not less than $20,221,018,007.00 potential recoverable revenues payable to the Federation Account.
He quoted the independent audit reports compiled National Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) came from “underpayment/underassessment of taxes, royalties, levies and rents.”
Mr Falana also noted that the CBN had apportioned $7 billion to 14 Nigerian banks to “manage” on October 4, 2006, out of the nation’s external reserves, which stood at $38.07 billion, as at the end of July, 2006.
He said:
“The amount involved represented 18.39 per cent of the total external reserves at the material time. In addition, following the crisis of global capitalism, which occurred in 2008, the Central Bank of Nigeria gave a bailout of $4 billion (N600 billion) to the commercial banks in the country.
“The CBN has not deemed it fit to ask for the refund of the total sum of $11 billion injected into the banking system in the space of two years.”
He maintained that this money should be recovered without any further delay to fund government spending.
