INTERVIEW: Tinubu Govt Not Serious About Fighting Corruption – SERAP

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?