The Deputy Director of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), Kolawole Oluwadare, has delivered a scathing assessment of President Bola Tinubu’s administration, accusing it of lacking the transparency and openness required to fight corruption effectively.
In this interview with THE WHISTLER’s Ikenna OMEJE, Oluwadare argues that the government’s resistance to disclosing public information, frequent legal battles over Freedom of Information requests, and alleged misuse of state institutions undermine its anti-corruption credentials.
He also speaks on SERAP’s litigation strategy, shrinking civic space, the alleged fake government agency in the 2026 budget, and why the organisation believes public-interest lawsuits remain a vital tool for holding government accountable.
SERAP Is Known For Holding Government And Its Agencies Accountable, And Often Goes To Court To Compel Them To Be Accountable. However, Critics Sometimes Argue That Court Victories Do Not Always Translate Into Government Compliance. How Do You Measure SERAP’s Impact Beyond Judgments?
It would mean that, for those who say that, they do not understand democracy as a system of government and a concept of governance.
So, in the democracy that we practise, there are three arms of government: the legislature, the judiciary, and the executive.
The judiciary functions because it interprets laws and compels citizens to act. Based on Section 6 of the Constitution, the judiciary is the arm of government that determines rights, duties, and obligations, either between citizens or between citizens and the government, and even between governments, which is why you sometimes see the federal government going to the Supreme Court against state governments.
What the judiciary does, which is what we use as a tool for social change, justice, and accountability, is to interpret those laws and clearly define the obligations and duties of government to the people.
So, it means that in instances where the law is not clear, or perhaps there are people who want to interpret the law wrongly or who are not obeying the law, the judiciary interprets that law.
And that is why, when we go to court, for instance, over a request that we issue to a government institution, and the judiciary delivers judgment, it reinforces the importance of freedom of expression and access to information for the Nigerian people.
That is true democracy. There are people who never believed it could work, but we’ve shown them that it can work, number one. Number two, it has become part of the jurisprudence that if A or B were to happen, this is what the law says and how it should be interpreted.
To give you a very good example, we sent a Freedom of Information request to the Ministry of Finance about the CCTV loan Nigeria obtained from China. I think it was in 2015. It was worth millions of dollars and has been repaid in billions of naira.
With rising insecurity in Nigeria, particularly the increase in violent attacks in Abuja, where the CCTV should have been installed, we submitted a Freedom of Information request. We didn’t receive a response within the seven days required, so we ended up in court.
Three years after the case came before the court, which was defended by counsel to the Ministry of Finance, the court delivered judgment and ordered the ministry to provide the details SERAP requested on behalf of the Nigerian people, including how much of the loan was disbursed, what equipment was purchased, who supplied it, the names of the companies involved, and the procurement process that was followed.
After we got the judgment, we also filed contempt proceedings against the Ministry of Finance. The ministry then sent us information about the loan, and it was from the documents they provided that we discovered they claimed they had no knowledge of the Nigerian contractors involved in the project.
They gave us details of everything they claimed they purchased, including items that are now missing. We saw it.
Is that not a triumph for access to information? Is that not a triumph for good governance? Because it means people can participate and use that information to hold the government to account.
If you ask the government about those things now, and somebody goes on television to say the money for the CCTV project was stolen, the government can simply dismiss it as fake news or even take the person to court. But we have used the instrumentality of the law to compel the government to disclose those details.
So, if I say now that those funds were properly spent or improperly spent, I have facts on my side to support that. A lot of judgments that we have obtained through public-interest litigation have also compelled the government to act.
Another example is the judgment we secured in 2019 compelling the Attorney General of the Federation to challenge the legality of state pension laws.
State pensions, even though they have a constitutional basis, have been abused by nearly every state in Nigeria, with state Houses of Assembly approving huge pension packages for former governors and their deputies.
After Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo delivered that judgment in 2019, several states amended or repealed those laws, including Kwara and Zamfara.
We’ve also seen former governors, including Senator Bukola Saraki, publicly state in response to that judgment that they were not collecting those pensions from their states.
Those are victories, not for SERAP, but for democracy. They show that citizens can engage government and hold it accountable, not only by voting every four years but also by participating through criticism and by asking questions about how public funds are spent.
You Have Filed Several Cases In Court Against Government Institutions And Agencies. What Is Your Success Rate In Percentage Terms On These Cases?
When you talk about success rate, let me use Freedom of Information requests as an example. The Freedom of Information Act guarantees every Nigerian the right to access information about governance.
The response rate we receive from the government to our Freedom of Information requests is less than 5 per cent. And even within that 5 per cent, the proportion of responses that actually provide the information we requested is around 2 per cent.
So, out of every 100 Freedom of Information requests we send, fewer than 10 receive any response at all. It may be 5 per cent or 7 per cent, where they simply tell us, “We are working on it,” “Give us more time,” “We don’t know,” or something similar. The responses that actually disclose the requested information account for only about 2 per cent.
When you compare that with our litigation, because we take many of those unanswered requests to court, our success rate is around 20 to 30 per cent. In other words, between 20 and 30 per cent of the cases we file result in legal victories.
But I also need to put that in perspective. While the objective of SERAP’s public-interest litigation is to obtain judicial pronouncements that hold the government accountable, we’ve also found that filing these lawsuits, and the public conversations they generate, serve as a powerful tool for civic education.
When we file a lawsuit and people begin discussing it, in the media and elsewhere, the issues become easier for ordinary Nigerians to understand.
It becomes a form of civic education. People begin to say, “So these are the governance issues involved in this matter.”
Whether we eventually win the case three or four years later, which is often how long litigation takes, we’ve already achieved something important by educating the public about those issues.
That kind of civic education is devoid of politics. It is neither partisan nor tribal, and it has no religious element. It is simply about governance.
We’ve received a great deal of feedback from people who say they now understand these issues better because of the media advocacy surrounding the public-interest cases we’ve filed.
How Would You Assess President Tinubu’s Administration On Anti-Corruption?
I would rate this administration very poorly in terms of its anti-corruption promises and practices.
There are many indicators that support that assessment. We don’t even need to rely on established international measures like Transparency International. There are simple indicators that every Nigerian can understand.
I’ll focus on transparency and accountability, particularly access to information.
Opacity may not, by itself, amount to corruption. But opacity enables corruption. Information that is hidden makes corruption much easier.
That is why the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression is not limited to the right to speak, which is what we’re doing now. It also includes the right to access information about government and governance.
That is why the Appropriation Bill is not secret. The Appropriation Act is not secret.
Every bill before the National Assembly is a public document. We know what the law says. We know what is contained in the budget. We know the proposed expenditure and projected revenue. We know when Nigeria wants to borrow money and what those loans are intended to finance.
So, if you look at governance from that perspective, the question becomes: how accessible is information about government spending, which is central to preventing corruption?
The answer is that it isn’t accessible enough.
A good example is the annual report of the Auditor-General of the Federation. It is produced by the Office of the Auditor-General, whose responsibility is to audit the accounts and financial statements of government ministries, departments, and agencies.
Those reports have consistently contained serious findings year after year.
They are public documents and can be accessed through the Auditor-General’s website.
Every year, the reports identify enormous sums of money that government institutions cannot account for.
The NNPC, the CBN, the National Assembly. The details are there. The Auditor-General repeatedly identifies funds that cannot be properly accounted for.
Under this administration, we’ve seen allegations of budget padding and the misuse of public loans, yet the government has done little to address those allegations.
Instead, when people ask questions, they are often targeted. If someone makes an allegation, the response is to dismiss it as fake news or pursue that person under the Cybercrimes Act.
That does not encourage transparency. It certainly does not promote accountability.
So how can we say such an administration is fighting corruption?
How can a government insist on secrecy instead of proactively disclosing information?
How can a government spend time, money, and public resources hiring external lawyers to defend lawsuits brought by SERAP simply to obtain public information, and still claim to be serious about fighting corruption?
If you genuinely want to fight corruption, you must be transparent.
The Freedom of Information Act requires every public institution, including the Presidency and the Office of the President, to proactively disclose information.
And where that information is not already publicly available, it should be provided when citizens request it.
Instead, the government often prefers to fight disclosure requests in court, whether through the Ministry of Justice or external counsel.
How can anyone describe that as a government that is serious about fighting corruption?
What Does The Alleged Fake Government Agency In The 2026 Budget Reveal About Tinubu’s Administration?
The issue, as it has been reported, is not simply about the Chief of Staff to the President.
It is about institutional failure.
It shows that institutions responsible for providing checks and balances, and ensuring that individuals and government do not act unlawfully, failed in their responsibilities.
If those institutions failed in this case, where one individual allegedly had this level of access, what else may have escaped scrutiny that we know nothing about?
The federal budget process is lengthy and detailed.
It begins with ministries, departments, and agencies preparing and submitting their budget proposals to the Budget Office of the Federation under the Presidency.
The Budget Office assigns budget codes and is expected to ensure that fictitious, duplicated, or repetitive projects are not included.
The budget is then transmitted to the President, who is supported by numerous advisers with technical expertise.
From there, it is presented to the National Assembly, where it is referred to the appropriation committees for detailed scrutiny.
Accounting officers and heads of the relevant agencies appear before those committees to defend every budget line, both recurrent and capital expenditure.
The committees submit their reports to the chambers, the Appropriation Bill is passed, and it is returned to the President for assent.
Everything I’ve just described takes months and involves numerous officials.
Yet the government is asking Nigerians to believe that an alleged fake agency secured N1.3bn in the federal budget without anyone detecting it throughout that entire process.
The suggestion that one individual acted alone is not only preposterous, it is deeply indicting of the administration.
It also raises serious questions about the Presidency, under which the alleged agency was said to operate.
There are only two logical possibilities.
Either individuals within those institutions colluded, or there was widespread negligence.
And for it to be negligence, it would require an extraordinary coincidence that officials across multiple institutions all failed simultaneously.
That includes those who allegedly allowed the agency to open an account with the CBN and those who allegedly permitted it to operate from the Federal Secretariat.
That stretches credibility.
There has to be a thorough investigation to establish who was involved.
What must not happen is for one individual to be presented as a scapegoat while everyone else escapes scrutiny.
It is simply not credible to suggest that he acted alone.
Many Civil Society Organisations Argue That Nigeria’s Civic Space Is Shrinking. Does SERAP Share This Assessment? What Evidence Supports That View?
Of course. It is not only shrinking, it is also shifting, and there is a distinction.
It is shrinking because of the actions of those in positions of power, whether state actors, non-state actors, politically exposed persons, or influential individuals, including celebrities, who use either state power or personal influence to suppress freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association.
A good example is the use, or misuse, of the Cybercrimes Act against people who are critical of the government on social media.
The case involving Mr. Omoyele Sowore is a good example. It is not only about the Cybercrimes Act; it is also about the use of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs).
A SLAPP is the use of legitimate court processes to intimidate, silence, or frustrate people into keeping quiet.
That is what the government, through the Department of State Services (DSS), did to Mr. Sowore. It is what the DSS has also done to SERAP through the defamation suit filed against us. It is what has been done to Professor Pat Utomi.
When you see repeated examples of SLAPPs being used deliberately and strategically, they become evidence of a shrinking civic space.
The same applies to the use of Section 24 of the Cybercrimes Act by the police to arrest and prosecute people over allegations of cyberbullying.
But the civic space is also shifting.
Under this administration, we have seen legitimate legal tools being used for illegitimate purposes. That includes using SLAPPs and the judicial process to intimidate the media.
Previously, we were familiar with the use of regulatory agencies such as the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to sanction media organisations.
That practice continues.
But now we are also seeing a shift towards using the courts to achieve the same objective by filing SLAPP suits against those perceived to be critical of the government.
The shrinking civic space is not driven only by state actors.
We are also seeing influential private individuals adopting the same tactics.
Celebrities and other influential figures now invoke Section 24 of the Cybercrimes Act to have people arrested and prosecuted.
So, the civic space is shrinking not only because state actors are using lawful institutions to silence critics, but also because non-state actors are beginning to imitate that approach, perhaps because they have political influence or the financial resources to do so.
We are seeing this happen more frequently, and the trend is escalating.
Take the case of Justice Crack, who released a video containing allegations against the Nigerian Army.
The appropriate response would have been for the Army to investigate those allegations and publish its findings.
Instead, he was arrested, detained for a period, and charged under Section 24 of the Cybercrimes Act.
These are clear examples of both a shrinking and a shifting civic space.
The result is an atmosphere of self-censorship within civil society and the media.
People become cautious about what they say, not because what they are saying is false, but because of the consequences they may face for speaking out.
SERAP Is Currently Appealing The N100m Defamation Judgment Obtained By Two DSS Officials Over The Organisation’s Claims That Operatives Intimidated Staff During A Visit To Its Abuja Office. Do You Believe The Lawsuit Was Intended To Protect Reputations Or To Discourage Public-Interest Advocacy? What Implications Could The Outcome Have For Civil Society Organisations Holding Security Agencies Accountable?
The suit filed by the DSS officials is, in our view, a classic example of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.
That is not only because we believe the case lacks merit. The facts are already in the public domain, so I am not speaking on matters that are sub judice.
It is also because of what the lawsuit is designed to achieve.
Its purpose is to create fear among people who might otherwise speak out.
It is intended to make people think about the consequences of criticising the government, not because what they are saying is false, but because of what may happen to them afterwards.
Defamation cases may be civil or criminal, but they carry serious consequences.
In SERAP’s case, the court awarded N100m in damages.
That suit was filed deliberately and strategically.
We have seen the same pattern before.
It happened to Professor Pat Utomi.
It is happening to Mr. Omoyele Sowore.
It has happened to SERAP.
As we move closer to another election cycle, we expect to see more of these cases.
The purpose of SLAPP suits is to discourage criticism.
They are intended to make people think twice before speaking, to encourage self-censorship, and to create fear among those who may not have the financial resources to spend years defending themselves in court or risk paying substantial damages.
Again, the issue is not whether what they said is true or false.
The objective is to make the consequences of speaking out so severe that many people choose to remain silent.
The effect on the civic space is obvious.
It creates an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship.
If The Court Of Appeal Upholds The Judgment, Do You Fear It Could Create A Precedent That Discourages NGOs, Journalists, And Activists From Speaking Out Against Powerful State Institutions, Even When They Believe They Are Acting In The Public Interest?
That is precisely what the filing of the lawsuit is intended to achieve.
The suit itself, the proceedings at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, and the judgment all point in the same direction.
If the Court of Appeal were to uphold that judgment, it could reinforce that effect.
It is a sequence, and it is both strategic and deliberate.
That said, I do not expect the Court of Appeal to affirm the judgment.
The facts are clear.
The law on defamation is also clear.
At first glance, it may appear to be an ordinary defamation case, but the facts do not satisfy the legal requirements for defamation.
That is why we remain confident that the appeal will succeed.
Are There Major Lawsuits Or Advocacy Campaigns Nigerians Should Expect From SERAP In The Coming Months?
We will continue doing what we have always done.
Public-interest litigation is always our last resort.
Before going to court, we pursue advocacy and every available non-litigation option.
We do not go to court because we enjoy litigation or because we are eager to sue.
We do so because we are a legal advocacy organisation, and we believe in the rule of law.
Where we believe the government has failed to act in accordance with the Constitution or the law, we rely on the judicial process rather than self-help.
That is the responsibility Section 6 of the Constitution assigns to the judiciary.
That is also what we will continue to do.
We will continue to hold the government accountable under the laws that mandate and authorise it to act.
So, if the government is found wanting in complying with constitutional provisions, statutory obligations, or established procedures, we will have no option but to return to court to ensure those rights are protected.
(The Whistler)