The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has called on President Bola Tinubu to begin an investigation into how the Borno State Government has spent its ecological funds over the years.
This call follows the collapse of the Alau Dam on September 9, 2024, which led to an unprecedented flood that displaced over 400,000 residents of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital and destroyed critical infrastructure.
Through a post on its verified X page, SERAP noted that is concerned about the state’s use of billions in ecological funds allocated to it since 2001.
The organisation added that between January 2024 and June 2024, the Borno government collected N816 million as its own share of the ecological funds.
“We’ve urged President Tinubu to promptly probe the spending of the billions of naira of ecological funds collected by Borno State since 2001, including the N816 million collected by the state between January and June 2024.”
The collapse of Alau Dam, located near Maiduguri, triggered one of the most devastating floods in recent years in Borno. Besides residential areas, the flood also caused damage to critical infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and utilities.
WikkiTimes has earlier reported that between 2018 and 2024, the Federal Government paid N309.3 million for the dam’s rehabilitation.
The findings revealed that the releases were made to various companies for the maintenance and rehabilitation of the dam.
Despite these expenditures, the dam failed, raising questions about the quality of the repairs and how the ecological funds managed by the state government were expended.
The ecological fund is a financial mechanism created by the federal government to tackle environmental and ecological issues across the country, particularly in regions vulnerable to erosion, flooding, desertification, and other ecological challenges.
Borno State, situated in the semi-arid northern region, has been a major recipient of these funds due to its exposure to environmental hazards.
