The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a human rights group, has sought the assistance of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute officials indicted in the fuel subsidy probe.
SERAP made this known in a petition dated April 20, 2012, signed by its Executive Director, Mr Adetokunbo Mumuni, addressed to the ICC Prosecutor, Mr Luis Ocampo.
A copy of the petition was made available to newsmen on Sunday in Lagos.
The group urged Ocampo to investigate “the systematic corruption and theft of over six billion dollars in the fuel subsidy scheme between 2009 and 2011”.
The group also urged him to prevail on the Nigerian government to investigate all allegations of corruption in the fuel subsidy scheme.
SERAP said: “The reported massive corruption in the fuel subsidy regime has caused so much suffering, and thrown millions of Nigerians into abject poverty, depriving them of their human dignity and access to resources necessary for the enjoyment of legally recognised economic, social and cultural rights”.
It said the scale of corruption in the fuel subsidy scheme in Nigeria amounts to a “crime against humanity” and contravened Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute.
“The common denominator of those crimes against humanity is that they are grave affronts to human security and dignity.
“The scale and magnitude of grand corruption in Nigeria creates just these consequences.
“Crimes against humanity are not only physical violence; rampant corruption holds a comparable gravity, which the prosecutor should examine and investigate”, it noted.
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