Nigeria’s House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions issued a warrant of arrest on Monday on the Governor of Central Bank, Mr. Olayemi Cardoso, the Accountant General of the Federation, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Madein, and 17 others for refusing to appear to answer questions on their operations.
The resolution followed the adoption of a motion moved by Hon. Fred Agbedi, a member representing Sagbama/Ekeremor Federal Constituency of Bayelsa State, at the committee’s hearing session yesterday.
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Moving the motion, Hon. Agbedi stressed that the arrest warrant had become inevitable following the attitude of those invited, adding that the parliament worked with time and the CEOs had been invited four times but failed to respond.
The lawmakers stated that the CEOs should be arrested and brought before the committee by the Inspector General of Police through a warrant of arrest after due diligence by the Speaker, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas.
The Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Michael Irom, a member representing Obubra/Etung Federal Constituency from Cross River State, ruled that the IG should ensure they were brought before the committee on Thursday, December 14, next week.
Meanwhile, the petitioner, Mr. Fidelis Uzowanem, noted that the petition was anchored on the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) report of 2021.
Fidelis said, “We took up the challenge to examine the report and discovered that what NEITI put together is only the consolidation of fraud that has been going on in the oil and gas industry.
He further noted “It dates back to 2016 because we have been following and we put up a petition to this committee to examine what has happened.
Noting that the 2024 budget of 27.5 trillion that has been proposed can be confidently funded from the recoverable amount that we identified in the NEITI report.
However, he said “It is a concealment of illegal transactions that took place in NNPCL. They have been in sync with some oil companies where some companies that did not produce crude were paid cash core, an amount paid for crude oil production”