Following what the Senate described as uneven disbursement of N500 billion development fund across the six geo-political zones, it has threatened to issue arrest warrants on the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.
The Senate’s Adhoc committee on the issues on Wednesday, November 30, also threatened to issue an arrest warrant on the managing director of Bank of Industry (BoI), Olukayode Pitan, as well as the heads of other financial institutions, New Telegraph reports.
According to the red chamber’s committee, Emefiele, Pitan, and others involved failed to honour its invitation.
Even more, the committee threatened to arrest the Managing Director of Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), Aliyu Abdulhamid, and the Director General of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Olawale Fasanya, for their alleged failure to appear at yesterday’s session of the probe.
Part of the committee’s task is to investigate claims that the above-mentioned institutions connived to shortchange some zones in the disbursement of funds meant for small and medium-scale businesses across the country.
Senator Sani Musa (APC Niger East), the chairman of the committee disclosed that of the five government agencies invited for the probe, only two appeared on Wednesday.
Musa noted that CBN, BOI, and NIRSAL failed to honour the invitation without any formal notice and explanation about their absence.
“Out of these five, only two came while the remaining three which are the CBN, BOI, and NIRSAL, were conspicuously absent without any letter from them explaining why.
“Assignment before this committee is a very important one, requiring cooperation and compliance from all those linked to issues at hand.
“MD of DBN and his counterpart from the Bank of Agriculture are here for required clarifications and explanations, making it mandatory for the CBN Governor, MD of BOI, and DG of NISRAL to appear unfailingly in subsequent sessions or risk being coerced through the issuance of a warrant of arrest.”