FOI: SERAP gives PDP, APC 14 days to disclose elections budget.

A civil society group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, has sent requests to Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and All Progressives Congress, APC, asking them to urgently provide information about the spending and sources of such funds on their electoral campaigns and other operations linked to 2015 general elections.
It said: “If the requested information is not provided to us within 14 days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter, the Registered Trustees of SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions under the Freedom of Information Act to compel you and your party to comply with our request.”
In the two letters by SERAP’s Executive Director, Mr. Adetokunbo Mumuni, dated November 18, to PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu and APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, the group expressed “serious concerns about the risks of corruption during electoral campaigns for the February 2015 general elections, especially the role of money in politics and the persistent failure generally to comply with national and international law on political party finance.”
The group said: “By virtue of Section 1 (1) of the Freedom of Information, FoI, Act 2011, SERAP is entitled to request for or gain access to information being requested.
“Under the FoI Act, your party is under a binding legal obligation to provide the applicant with the information requested for, except as otherwise provided by the Act, within seven days after the application is received.
“By Sections 2(3)(d)(V) & (4) of the FoI Act, there is a binding legal duty to ensure that documents containing the necessary information are widely disseminated and made readily available to members of the public through various means.
“The information being requested does not come within the purview of the types of information exempted from disclosure by the provisions of the FoI Act.”