Nigeria’s Speaker of the House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila has threatened to issue a warrant of arrest for Godwin Emefiele, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN governor over his failure to appear before the House.
The lower chamber had on Tuesday invited Emefiele and commercial bank chief executives to appear before an adhoc committee set up to look into issues sorrounding the January 31, 2023 deadline set by the apex bank to demonetize the N200, N500, and N1000 banknotes.
Emefiele and the bank chief executives did not show up, forcing the Housing to shift the meeting to Friday this week.
Recall that the House and Senate had, on Tuesday, ordered the CBN to shift the deadline for phasing out the naira notes to July 31 this year .
But Emefiele had responded at the monthly Monetary Policy Meeting, MPC, that there was no going back on the CBN decision to illegalise the naira notes by the end of the month.
Reporting to the House on Thursday, the Committee chairman who also doubles as Majority Leader, Alhassan Doguwa said Emefiele ignored their summons, and also failed to sent Representatives to appear before the committee.
Doguwa said Emefiele’s refusal to appear is an insult on the lawmakers, adding that the CBN governor and others were given enough time to appear before the committee.
“The committee invited the CBN yesterday, and we decided to take the governor specifically yesterday, we invited the CBN governor yesterday, to come with the officials of the central bank. I want to say, with all sense of responsibility, that the committee was delayed by the absence – flagrant refusal of the CBN to make an appearance,” Doguwa said.
“The governor was not there and no other person came in place of the CBN governor. My committee sat without them. We spoke with the liaison of the CBN and he said they got the letter late. As an institution, we gave them a benefit of the doubt. We gave them 1 pm.”
Gbajabiamila in his response, said that he is willing to activate Section 89(1)(d) of the 1999 Constitution, which gives the House the power to direct security agencies to order an arrest warrant against anyone.
He said, “Therefore, I will, pursuant to the authority conferred by Section 89 (1)(d) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Order 19 (2)(1) of the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives, not hesitate to issue a warrant to the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police Force to compel the attendance of the CBN or Managing Directors who fail, refuse or neglect to respond to the summons by the House of Representatives.”
Meanwhile, the magazine has learnt from competent sources in CBN that Emefiele is likely to appear before the committee on Friday.
“In case the CBN governor is going to be absent due to the exigency of his work, he will send some officials to represent him,” the source said.
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