A group of civil society organisations has called on Nigerians to engage the Federal Government to explain how $3.4 billion Special Drawing Rights allocated to Nigeria in 2021 was utilised.

The Acting Executive Director, Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, Leo Atakpu, gave the advice in Abuja on Friday at the launching of a Report on the Utilisation of Special Drawing Rights in Abuja.

Mr Atakpu said that Nigeria received $3.4 billion SDR from the International Monetary Fund in August 2021 to cushion the effect of COVID-19.

The SDR is a form of financing instrument that a country gets from the IMF as a member country in times of global financial crisis such as COVID-19.

ANEEJ boss said two countries, Chad and Zimbabwe, spent their SDR to boost agriculture, interrogating how SDR allocated to Nigeria was spent and what it was used for.

According to him, ANEEJ organised a three-day capacity building workshop in partnership with AFRODAD and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to track SDR funds and raise citizens’ voices to end debt crises in West Africa.

At a panel discussion, President, International Peace and Civic Responsibility Centre, Chris Azor, urged Nigerians to request the government to account for the IMF’s SDR as they have the right to know according to the constitution.

According to him, it behoves on citizens to demand for accountability and transparency of the SDR funds.

Also speaking, the Executive Director, Keen and Care Initiative,  Josephine Alabi, underscored the need for Nigerians to ask questions on how SDR  was spent and how it was used.

Also, Chairman, Guild of Public Affairs Analyst, Dr Ambrose Igboke, said the nation’s leaders do what they do because nobody interrogates what they are doing.

“In developed countries, their citizens hold their leaders accountable by asking the right questions while in the developing world, leaders do what they like,” he said.

The Programme Officer, Gender and Development Action, Inyingi Irimagha, said in spite of the SDR funds allocated to Nigeria, SDR did not strengthen the oil sector.

Nigeria received its first SDR in the 70s when there was oil glut, recording second SDR in 1979 during gulf war, third during 2019 economic meltdown and in 2021 due to COVID-19.

 (NAN)