By Nathaniel Zaccheaus, Abuja
The Senate has mandated its Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions to issue warrants of arrest against some top government officials who repeatedly ignored invitations.
The affected officials were the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi; Chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa; the Head of Service of the Federation, and Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack, among others.
Union Homes Savings and Loans Plc, Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, and Sally Best Properties Limited are other public agencies whose chief executives risk arrest warrants.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee, Neda Imasuen, said the red chamber, through a resolution, gave him the go-ahead to force the affected agency officials to the National Assembly during plenary on Wednesday.
In a statement he issued yesterday in Abuja, Imasuen said their flagrant disobedience to the committee’s invitations was slowing down the panel’s activities.
The Labour Party chieftain, representing Edo South Senatorial District in the nation’s parliament, said the affected people had questions based on petitions against their agencies and firms.
The Senate’s resolution followed Imasuen’s complaint, which was made through a motion for action anchored on order 42 of the Senate Standing Rules.
In the motion, Imasuen lamented that several invitations sent to the heads of the affected agencies and firms to appear before his committee for explanations or defences on petitions by aggrieved Nigerians or corporate bodies were ignored.
He then requested the Senate mandate that his committee issue a warrant of arrest against the recalcitrant chief executives.
Being a request made through personal explanation, the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, granted him.
Akpabio had said, “You already have the power as provided for by section 89 of the 1999 constitution. Please use it by issuing a warrant of arrest against any head of agencies refusing to appear before the public petition committee.
“Appearances of the invited people before the committee are significant for justice and fairness on issues raised against them in the petitions before the Senate through the Public Petitions Committee,” he said.
Imasuen subsequently told journalists after securing the Senate mandate that he would make the lists of erring public officers and the firm’s chief executives available on Sunday, which he did.
However, in his statement, Imasuen appeared to have given the affected people a second chance.
Part of the statement read, “Fresh letters of invitations have been sent to heads of the affected agencies upon which warrant of arrest would be issued if any of them fails to appear.”
