Alex Enumah in Abuja
Justice Inyang Ekwo of a Federal Excessive Courtroom in Abuja, yesterday ordered the Nationwide Inhabitants Fee, (NPC) to offer account of the way it spent N200 billion out of the funds allotted to the fee for the conduct of the 2023 nationwide census.
Justice Ekwo made the order whereas delivering judgment in a swimsuit filed in opposition to the inhabitants fee by an Abuja based mostly lawyer, Mr Victor Opatola.
The lawyer had dragged the NPC to courtroom for refusing to offer detailed info on the way it spent the sum of N200 billion on preparations for the postponed 2023 inhabitants and housing census.
Amongst reliefs sought from the courtroom embody an order of mandamus directing the defendant “to furnish the plaintiff with complete and detailed info regarding info on the funds obtained to this point by the fee in the direction of the conduct of 2023 Census by the plaintiff’s utility inside 7 days”.
Delivering judgment within the swimsuit, Ekwo held that the refusal by the NPC to launch the data or information of spending on the aborted census as requested by the lawyer on March 30, 2023 was wrongful, unlawful and unconstitutional.
Citing Part 4 of the Freedom of Data Act, (FOI), the decide held that the refusal of the fee to offer the plaintiff with info on the businesses that offered due diligence report on the expertise to be deployed for the ill-fated census was a gross violation of the fitting of the plaintiff as enshrined in Part 4 of the FOI Act.
Ekwo rejected the declare by the defendant that paperwork and the absence of its govt chairman on the time was accountable for the refusal to make the requested information out there to the plaintiff, including that the declare was untenable.
The decide additionally dismissed the declare by the NPC that a few of the requested info was categorized which prompted the refusal to make the information out there to the plaintiff, including that from the definition of categorized info, there was nothing secret on the problem of inhabitants census.
Ekwo additionally mentioned that the place of the fee that the report sought by the plaintiff was already within the public area was not tenable as a result of the request of the plaintiff was on report on the disposal of the NPC and never the one within the public area.
He accordingly granted an order of mandamus compelling the NPC, its servants, brokers privies and officers to furnish the lawyer with complete and detailed info regarding the High quality Take a look at Assurance Report on the units and expertise to be deployed for the postponed 2023 inhabitants census.
The courtroom, nevertheless, refused to grant the sum of N500,000 demanded by the plaintiff for alleged breach of his proper beneath the FOI, Act.
The NPC Government Chairman, Nasir Kwarra, in Could 2023, had disclosed that the fee spent N200 billion for preparation, out of the anticipated N800 billion wanted to conduct the census.
The disclosure led the lawyer to file an FOI utility to the fee, on March 2023, requesting info on the price range submitted by the fee for the 2023 census in addition to the quantity to this point obtained by the fee in the direction of the conduct of the 2023 census.
The plaintiff who claimed that the mentioned utility addressed to the NPC was duly acknowledged and served on the fee by way of its chairman, lamented that the NPC declined to do the needful consistent with related legal guidelines.
Within the swimsuit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/ 503/2023, Opatola prayed the courtroom to carry that the refusal of the inhabitants fee to make the report of spendings on the aborted inhabitants census amongst others, out there to him was a breech of his rights beneath Part 4 of the FOI Act 2012.
