Advocacy against impunity in the oil subsidy regime in Nigeria

PROJECT HIGHLIGHT
Advocacy against impunity in the oil subsidy regime in Nigeria

ANEEJ is currently implementing a project tagged Advocacy against impunity in the oil subsidy regime in Nigeria. The 1 year project is supported by J4A/DFID.
The project is a major effort to end impunity in the management of oil subsidy funds in Nigeria, where contractors acting in cooperation with some “unseen persons” in government collect huge sums of money from government (subsidy) with an intention of importing refined crude oil products for all Nigerian citizens. Experience over the years has shown that such monies are either misappropriated or out rightly stolen vide corrupt practices, yet there have been almost insignificant effort to punish offenders. Also, many Nigerians who hold their rights to development do not know much about happenings around the issue. Government keeps pushing to stop subsidies on petrol citing corruption as a reason, but Nigerians insist on government and stakeholders fighting corruption instead. An attempt to remove subsidy early 2012 led to nationwide protest that shut down the country for two weeks, forcing government to track down some oil subsidy corruption suspects. But their arrests, arraignment and trial have been slow and leave much to be desired. This project seeks to push for quick delivery of justice to suspects currently facing trial and recovery of monies stolen, to fund development as a major outcome.
ANEEJ is embarking on this project to ensure greater enforcement of anti-corruption laws, Public awareness of enormity of the problem, reduced corruption among citizens and government agencies, Greater transparency and accountability in oil subsidy regime. We plan to deliver the project through monitoring of Anti-corruption Agencies (ACAs), Judiciary as well as advocacy to end impunity and capacity building.

1. Project Goal
• To raise public awareness about corruption and malpractice in the oil and gas sector by improved reporting of anti-corruption efforts in the oil and gas sector by Anti-corruption Agencies (ACAs), CSOs and the media, supported by proper information and statistics.
• To highlight anti-corruption success stories in the oil and gas sector, with justice seen to be done, more oil subsidy scam suspects being brought to justice and stolen monies recovered to finance development in Nigeria

2. Project Purpose
The purpose of the project is to raise public awareness about general and specific cases of corruption and malpractice in the oil and gas sector and put pressure on government to do more to hold perpetrators and government to account.
3. Specific Objectives
• Identify, monitor and report on cases of malpractice and corruption in the fuel subsidy regime, including the government anti-corruption efforts.
• Strengthen the capacity of CSOs and media to hold government to account for malpractice in the fuel subsidy regime and government efforts to deal with it.
• In collaboration with the ACAs, CSOs and the media support and strengthen advocacy efforts, media reporting and publicity that will enlighten the general public and mobilise action against fuel subsidy malpractice and the recovery of stolen loot.
• Provide a report that would detail malpractice indictments and benchmark anti-corruption efforts of stakeholders in the fuel subsidy regime, and provide 2 detailed case studies that would help illustrate good methodologies and case management.
• Provide 3 quarterly online reports containing proper data, statistics and information of the fuel subsidy prosecutions for the information and use of all stakeholders in the oil and gas sector – ACAs, Judiciary, CSOs, the private sector and the general public.

SOME PROJECT ACTIVITIES
Some of the project activity areas include;
• An inception meeting with the participants, institutions and organisations, including EFCC, SFU, NFIU, Attorney General of the Federation OFFICE, High Court (Lagos), CSOs and media, with the agenda including the presentation of project goals and objectives, the activities and the roles of the participant institutions and organisation, and expectations regarding the sustainability of information sharing after the project ends.
• An Information, Monitoring and Reporting systems and protocols will be designed for gathering the information/data and reporting, geared to existing capacity and resources. A database of institutions and organisations including appropriate points of contact in the participant institutions and organisations will thus be developed.
• Capacity Building Training Workshops for media and CSOs on anti-corruption reporting
• Develop Research Reports and Case Studies on Fuel Subsidy Malpractice and Anti-Corruption Efforts. Reports on fuel subsidy malpractice including processes and procedures for indictments, arraignments and prosecutions, and baseline data on malpractice cases to date will be produced.
• Publicise and disseminate information about malpractice and corruption through online reporting and social media