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Nigeria: Probe - Southwest Lawmakers Oppose Obasanjo's Invitation
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This Day (Lagos)
12 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Stanley Nkwazema
Abuja
More lawmakers from the South-west have continued to fault the House of Representatives, for summoning former president Olusegiun Obasanjo, to explain his role in the $16 billion spent on power without commensurate results.
Chairman, House Committee on Environment, Honourable Duro Faseyi, who represents Ekiti North II Federal Constituency, said the Power committee has gone beyond the mandate given to it by the House. The lawmaker said principal officers of the House were not in support of the summon, and that the committee acted on its own.
Another lawmaker, who is a member of the committee, Honourable Muraina Ajibola, also on Thursday, described Obasanjo's invitation as " a parliamentary blunder."
Speaking from the U.S., in a telephone interview, Ajibola said there was no basis for the summon, as there was no fraud uncovered that was directly linked to Obasanjo.
The Committee had last week Tuesday, summoned Obasanjo and his vice, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to appear before it today, to explain their roles in the various power projects executed between 1999 and 2007. While criticising Chairman of the Committee, Honourable Ndudi Elumelu and members of the committee, Faseyi, in a press statement in Abuja at the weekend, said "the committee has gone beyond its mandate. It does not have the backing of Principal officers of the House to summon Obasanjo. Nobody gave them the mandate.
"It is an act of disrespect for someone of Obasanjo's status to be summoned as the committee had done. He has served this country meritoriously more than any other past leader. Is Obasanjo a contractor? Was he the one that awarded contracts for the various power projects under investigation? He is not acontractor. There are some people who were saddled with that responsibility. Those are the people that should be summoned, not Obasanjo," Faseyi declared.
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In his reaction, Elumelu told THISDAY that in as much as he is not ready to trade words with his colleagues on the issue, the Committee duly met on April 22, and took the decision to invite Obasanjo, Atiku and Nenadi Usman.
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