Mr. Olayemi Cardoso, governor of the Central Bank, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Madein, accountant general of the Federation, and seventeen others have been issued arrest warrants by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions for failing to appear before the committee to answer questions on their activities.
At Tuesday’s committee hearing, Rep. Fred Agbedi (PDP-Bayelsa) had already moved for this to happen.
In introducing the motion, Agbedi stated that the invitees’ attitudes had rendered the arrest warrant necessary.
According to him, the parliament was punctual, and after four invitations, the CEOs still haven’t responded.
After Speaker Tajudeen Abbas has done his homework, he said, the Inspector General of Police should use an arrest warrant to summon the CEOs to testify before the committee.
In his ruling, Rep. Micheal Irom (APC-Cross River), who serves as the committee chairman, stated that the chief executive officers shall be brought before the committee on December 14.
Based on the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) report of 2021, the petition was initially stated by the petitioner, Mr. Fidelis Uzowanem.
We accepted the task of reviewing the report and found that all that NEITI has done is compile evidence of widespread fraud in the oil and gas sector.
We have been keeping tabs on this since 2016, when we petitioned this committee to look at the matter.
We have confidence in our ability to use the recoverable amount identified in the NEITI report to fund the projected 2024 budget of 27.5 trillion.
According to him, “it is basically a concealment of illegal transactions that took place in NNPCL.” He explained that NNPCL had been involved in a dispute with some oil firms, wherein companies that did not produce crude oil were paid a core amount for crude oil production, in cash.
Mismob Media