The National Assembly has reiterated its stand to go ahead with arrest warrant where a chief executive officer (CEO) fails repeatedly to honour summons by a committee, describing it as an affront on the National Assembly.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Samuel Anyanwu, reiterated this position in an exclusive chat with Daily Trust on the sideline of the just concluded retreat of the National Assembly Committees on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions in Lagos.
Senator Anyanwu said: “I advise that each time you are invited, you come, if not the legislators can frustrate you.
“If you are invited a couple of times and you do not appear, it is an affront on the committee; we will issue a warrant of arrest, it is in our constitution in Sections 88 and 89. The Senate and the House of Representatives have every power to summon anybody in this country to give evidence in a matter they are handling.
“For instance, if the chief executive of an organisation is being invited, all the members of the assembly are present. We are not there for nothing. We have sworn an oath to protect all manner of people.
Commenting on incessant invitations, Senator Anyanwu said: “What if it was a court case; would they not have been going to court multiple times before a judge? I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Recently, the Nigeria Employers Consultative Forum (NECA) called on the legislative arm of government to restrain its committees from what it described as “brazen attack on enterprise right” until the Supreme Court determined the case brought before it which sought clarification on the scope and extent of the constitutionality of investigatory authority/powers of the lawmakers in Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution.
In a press conference by Mr. Olusegun Oshinowo, Director General of NECA, in Lagos, he said there had been an unhealthy increase in the incidence of unwarranted investigations by the National Assembly, particularly the House of Representatives, through countless various committees and ad-hoc committees into any aspect of the private sector’s operation that catches their fancy.
