- Ojougboh Ignorant Of NASS’ Constitutional Mandate – Senate
The ongoing face-off between the National Assembly and the Interim Management Committee of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) does not appear to be abating soon as the spokesman of the Senate, Senator Akinola Bashiru, has said that the National Assembly will under no circumstance back down on its probe of the NDDC.
This is coming on the heels of a statement credited to Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, the Executive Director of Projects at the NDDC under the IMC that alleged that Senators and Members of House of Representatives are behind the fraud in NDDC.
As a result, Bashiru, in a statement vowed that no amount of blackmail against lawmakers or the institution of the National Assembly would stop ongoing investigations into the financial transactions of the Commission while challenging the Commission to provide evidence of alleged corruption claims against lawmakers of the Senate and House of Representatives to anti-graft agencies for investigation.
“The attention of the Senate has been drawn to a statement credited to Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, the Executive Director of Projects at the NDDC under the IMC. Ojuogboh in his statement alleged that Senators and Members of the House of Representatives are behind the fraud in NDDC.
Ordinarily, while we are still at a loss as to why Ojougboh has repeatedly made such allegations at a time when the NDDC is under the scrutiny of forensic audit and investigation by the National Assembly, the Senate is even more surprised considering the fact that the allegations are baseless and unsubstantiated.
Apparently, Ojougboh is ignorant of the constitutional mandate of the National Assembly to carry out oversight function overall agencies expending government resources with a view to exposing and preventing corruption, abuse, and inefficiency.
It stands logic on the head to claim that by invoking its constitutional power of oversight to investigate the activities of the IMC, the National Assembly intends to scuttle forensic audit. The outlandish claim is illogical,” Ajibola said.
Recall that Ojougboh had claimed that unknown to other lawmakers, the two chairmen, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi and Rep Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, “raised and vandalized” the commission’s 2019 budget.
“The problem we have with these two chairmen is that when we submitted our budget, they vandalized our budget, they raised our 2019 budget. NDDC must be allowed to function. The purpose of which it was instituted must be allowed to happen.
“If you look at what the two chairmen did in the National Assembly, all the regional projects of Mr. President were removed from the budget. Look at what they infused and injected. The total sum that they brought is N85 billion worth of new projects…,” he stated.
