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Nigeria: Senate Orders Arrest of NNPC Boss
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This Day (Lagos)
9 February 2008
Posted to the web 9 February 2008
Sufuyan Ojeifo And Onyebuchi Ezigbo
Abuja
The Senate Committee on Petroleum (upstream sector) yesterday issued a warrant of arrest for the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petro-leum Corporation (NNPC), Engineer Abubakar Yar' Adua for allegedly frustrating the committee while carrying out its oversight functions.
Yar' Adua was also said to have made himself unavailable when the committee visited the corporation's headquarters.
But in a swift reaction last night, the Group General Manager, Public Affairs of NNPC, Livi Ajuonuma said it was not true that Yar'Adua ignored the senators, explaining that at the time of their visit, "the GMD was away attending another meeting summoned by the Presi-dent."
Chairman of the committee, Senator Lee Ledogo Maeba, in a letter to the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro, dated February 8 2008 requested him to compel Yar' Adua, after the arrest, to appear before the committee on Tuesday, next week at 12 noon.
Maeba said the committee would seek the immediate resignation of Yar' Adua and all the executive directors of the NNPC if the summon was circumvented and not complied with by Tuesday.
The committee in its one-page letter said the request was based on the provisions of Section 89 (1)(d) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The Section reads: "For the purpose of any investigation under Section 88 of this Constitution and subject to the provisions thereof, the Senate or the House of Representatives or a committee appointed in accordance with Section 62 of this Constitution shall have power to: "Issue a warrant to compel the attendance of any person who, after having been summoned to attend, fails, refuses or neglects to do so and does not excuse such failure."
Speaking yesterday at a press conference in Abuja before the letter was dispatched, the committee's Chairman, Senator Maeba said: "NNPC had been informed of this visit at least a fortnight ago. When we arrived NNPC, we were amazed that not even a single staff of NNPC, nor management staff of the corporation, was on hand to receive our committee.
"We had to struggle through the lift and through fire the exit, to get to the office of the GMD of NNPC who himself was also not in the office. The office was empty."
He continued: "There are serious problems that have to do with midstream upstream operations in the oil industry. There are problems all over the place. Our oversight tour was fixed at this time to attend to those problems and to get the comment of the NNPC management so that we can address these problems.
"But unfortunately, the management ignored our oversight tour. All the senators here were billed to have gone to one place or the other but reserved today to start the tour. As such, we frown at that act of disrespect on the National Assembly by the management of the NNPC.
The chairman said that in accordance with the provisions of Section 89(1)(d) of the 1999 Constitution, the committee had issued this order to the IGP.
"By this, we are already sending an official letter to the Inspector-General of Police that he should produce the GMD and the entire members of the executive committee and every head of department of the NNPC to appear before this Committee by 12 noon in Hearing Room One on Tuesday, unfailingly.
"And we advised that the IGP and the GMD of NNPC know that we are exercising the powers conferred on us by Section 89(1)(d) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and if they do not appear on Tuesday, we will not hesitate to demand for the resignation of the affected members of the NNPC."
Ajuonuma in his reaction said: "The senators came to NNPC this morning and were well received by four Group Executive Directors. The GMD was not available to receive them because of a presidential assignment with the Ministers of Finance, Defence and the Inspector General of Police but he mandated his Executive Directors to make sure that the senators were well attended to.
"As a reasonable corporate organisation, NNPC mandated four of its executives to receive the senators who came in to exercise their oversight functions on issues relating to our operations, which can be adequately addressed by the GEDs."
Ajonuma said the matter should not call for issuance of a warrant of arrest by the lawmakers since there was no evidence that Yar'Adua ignored their visit.
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He said NNPC was not under any previous summons or being investigated as to elicit the kind of response credited to the senators.
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