House of Reps Issue Arrest Warrant on New CBN Governor, AGF, 17 Others

An arrest warrant has been issued on the new CBN Governor, AGF, and others by the House of Reps.

Newsone Nigeria reports that the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions has issued an arrest warrant for the Central Bank Governor, Mr. Olayemi Cardoso, the Accountant General of the Federation, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Madein, and 17 others for their refusal to honour the committee’s invitations to address inquiries regarding their operations.

This online news platform understands Rep Fred Agbedi (PDP-Bayelsa) during the committee’s hearing on Tuesday, December 5, 2023,  moved a motion leading to the adoption of the arrest warrant due to the continuous absence of the invitees.

The lawmaker highlighted that despite being invited four times, the CEOs failed to attend the hearings, compelling the need for this action.

The Committee’s Chairman, Rep Micheal Irom (APC-Cross River), ruled that the Inspector General of Police should ensure the appearance of the CEOs before the committee on December 14 through a warrant of arrest after Speaker Rep Tajudeen Abbas conducts due diligence.

Newsone Nigeria reports that the petitioner, Mr Fidelis Uzowanem, earlier said that the petition was anchored on the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) report of 2021.

“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,” he said.