TheCable

Members of the house of representatives says they will report government agencies that failed to honour their invitation to President Muhammadu Buhari.

At its investigative hearing on Wednesday, the house committee on public accounts said it will petition the president requesting him to compel the agencies to honour its invitation.

The committee is investigating the alleged sale of some national assets without due process.

Some of the agencies whose heads were summoned but failed to appear before the lower legislative chamber of the national assembly are the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

Also invited were the heads of the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF), the Nigeria Port Authority (NPA) and the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE).

Wole Oke, chairman of the committee, expressed displeasure over the non-appearance of the public officials, and requested the panel’s clerk to forward a petition to the president informing him of the development.

He said the petition should be written through the office of the secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), requesting the president to get the agencies to honour the invitation within seven days.

Wednesday’s incident is the latest of what appears to become a norm where heads of government ministries, parastatals and agencies (MDAs) fail to appear before the federal lawmakers when invited.

When such happens, the legislators usually issue a warrant of arrest or turn to Buhari for his intervention.

In 2019, a similar incident played out between the lower legislative chamber and the service chiefs who failed to honour an invitation when the national assembly was probing Nigeria’s security challenges.

Femi Gbajabiamila, the speaker, had threatened to report them to Buhari after which all the service chiefs responded.