TheCable

A federal high court in Abuja has set aside the invitation of the federal house of representatives to Diezani Alison-Madueke, minister of petroleum resources, to appear before it for allegedly spending N10bn on hiring chattered jets for unofficial purposes.

Madueke and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had approached the court to stop the lawmakers from probing the allegation.

Ahmed Mohammed, the justice who presided over the matter, ruled that although the lawmakers had the power to summon the minister, they did not follow due process in doing so.

Mohammed also held that the house ought to have presented before the court a journal or gazette of the resolution of the meeting where it agreed to invite Madueke.

“None of the defendants produced the published resolution where it was said that the plaintiffs should be invited,” Mohammed said.

“The defendants ought to have brought before the court the resolution of its meeting wherein the plaintiffs were invited to appear before it. There is no evidence before the court that there was a resolution to invite the plaintiffs and by this act, it renders the summons invalid.

“Therefore, the letter of invitation served on the plaintiffs is hereby set aside because of the failure of the house of representatives to produce the resolution as duly published in the gazette or journal.”

The court, however, faulted the submission of the plaintiffs’ counsel that the lawmakers lacked the power to summon them without the president’s consent and refused to grant the prayer.

“The national assembly, in the discharge of its duty, does not need any presidential consent to invite a public officer to come and defend how he managed a public property such as the aircraft in his/her care,” the court held.

“What the house is asking for is not a confidential document that needed the consent of the president before it would be released, but rather a public property placed in care of a public servant.”

In the originating summons, Etigwe Uwa, counsel to the plaintiff, argued that the lawmakers lacked constitutional power to carry out an oversight function on ministries, departments and agencies.

Uwa contended that the consent of the president must be sought first before any summons could be issued out by the house or request for any documents or papers. He urged the court to set aside the summons because the defendants did not comply with Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 constitution and did not follow due process.

But Yakubu Maikyau and Abubakar Mahmud, counsels to the senate and house of representatives, prayed the court to dismiss the argument of the plaintiff.

They argued that the plaintiff had approached the court because she was panicky about the outcome of the probe, noting that the vote of proceedings for that day could be used as a journal.

They, therefore, prayed the court to allow the probe.