By Kolawole Ojebisi
The House of Representatives has urged the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, to live up to the honour of his office by not turning down the invitation to appear before its panel on Monday.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr Benjamin Kalu, said this on Saturday, in an interview with TVC.
Kalu, who is also a member of the House Committee conducting the probe into the affairs of the NDDC, admonished the minister to obey the summons to clear the air on several allegations levelled against him.
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The New Diplomat had reported how the House Committee conducting probe into the management of funds in the NDDC had summoned Akpabio to appear before it on Monday.
The decision was taken after Former Managing Director of Interim Management Committee of NDDC, Dr. Joi Nunieh, had made a lengthy testimony before the committee on Friday. Her allegations border on financial malfeasance against Akpabio. Nunieh was scheduled to appear before the committee on Thursday, but couldn’t make it because of the siege laid to her house by the police during the wee hours of that day; Nunieh eventually appeared through virtual means on Friday.
She said, among other allegations, that Akpabio used to ask her to cook the books to execute nonexistent projects. After Nunieh had churned out litany of allegations, the committee resolved to invite Akpabio to come and defend himself against those allegations to ensure fairness.
The House Committee on NDDC is especially probing the illegal spending by the IMC of the commission, totalling N81.5bn between January and July 2020.
The committee also extended the invitation to the the Acting Managing Director of NDDC, Prof. Kemebradikumo Pondei. Pondei had earlier on Thursday walked out on the committee. An action the committee interpreted as contempt of the house which is capable of hindering it from carrying out one of its oversight functions.
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The action prompted the house to issue a warrant of arrest on Pondei. There are strong indications that the committee will not take any action that borders on contempt against it lightly again, following the stern warning issued by President Buhari on Thursday that he would not tolerate disrespect from heads of ministries, departments and agencies of the Federal Government, in their dealings with the National Assembly.
Kalu said, “We have not indicted anybody, we are gathering facts. And I’m sure that at the end of the day, we will have a direction of what has happened to the money that belongs to the Niger Delta region.
“We expect the minister to honour Mr President the same way the Minister of Works (and Housing, Babatunde Fashola) honours Mr President whenever he is invited; the same way the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (Boss Mustapha), a very humble, thorough man honours Mr President when the House invites him; the same way the Accountant General and the Auditor General (of the Federation) honour Mr President when they are invited.
Kalu said Akpabio and Pondei should not send representatives to the committee on Monday as they (representatives) would be driven back. “That is the same way we expect him to honour Mr President and attend in person. We don’t want to see the Permanent Secretary on Monday. We don’t want to see his representative, we want him to appear before the institution. He is not appearing before Tunji Ojo or the committee; he is appearing before Nigerians on Monday.”
The House spokesman, who is also a member of the panel, hinted that Akpabio and Pondei, who is heading the Interim Management Committee of the NDDC, may have it rough on Monday should they fail to appear in person before the Committee.
The lawmaker also hinted that part of the questions to be asked was why the IMC failed to comply with Buhari’s order to start and supervise the audit of the NDDC 10 months after.
Kalu said, “When he (Akpabio) appears, there are few questions that we are going to raise and we don’t want to preempt them at the moment. There are certain things that have been done by the minister and the supervising ministry which we believe are not in order. We are going to ask for explanations.
“Why it is going to be beautiful is because the (acting) MD is going to be there, the IMC and the minister are going to be there, and their words must tally with one another. And if there are practices that took place outside the required rules of public service, we will discover that. If there are certain things that were done that were not supposed to be done, we will also discover that.
“On this whole issue of ‘the National Assembly is trying to protect themselves by avoiding this forensic audit,’ we will be out and he will answer certain questions on whether or not, the audit has actually started 10 months after the Federal Government under the President gave the mandate. Remember that it was on the 29th of October that he (Buhari) gave the mandate and said your (IMC’s) duty is to conduct this forensic audit.
The question Nigerians should ask is, “has this auditing started?’ If it has started, is there any evidence? Our records have shown that it was just recently, in May, that they approached FEC (Federal Executive Council) to give them approval for them to hire auditors. We know that there are rules that have to be followed, by virtue of Section 36 (of the Constitution).”
