House Committee Orders Arrest Of CBN Governor, Others For Non-Appearance

The House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions has issued warrants for the arrest of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, the Accountant General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Madein, and 17 other officials for failing to appear before the committee.

The decision followed the adoption of a motion by Representative Fred Agbedi (PDP-Bayelsa) during the committee’s hearing on Tuesday.

Agbedi argued that the arrest warrants were necessary due to the non-compliance of the invitees.

He proposed that the CEOs be brought before the committee by the Inspector General of Police, following due diligence by the Speaker, Rep Tajudeen Abbas.

The Chairman of the Committee, Rep Michael Irom (APC-Cross River), directed that the IG ensure the presence of these officials on December 14.

The petitioner, Fidelis Uzowanem, had earlier stated that his petition was based on the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) report of 2021.

He said, “We took up the challenge to examine the report and discovered that what NEITI put together is a report is only consolidation of fraud that has been going on in the oil and gas industry.

“It dates back to 2016 because was have been following and we put up a petition to this committee to examine what has happened.

“The 2024 budget of 27.5 trillion that has been proposed can be confidently funded from the recoverable amount that we identified in the NEITI report.

“It is basically a concealment of illegal transactions that took place in NNPCL; they have been in a sink with some oil companies where some companies that did not produce crude were paid cash core, an amount paid for crude oil production.”