The House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions has summoned the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Adewale Adeniyi, to appear before it on Tuesday next week.
Adeniyi is expected to answer questions regarding a petition filed by the Obasi-Pherson Help Foundation, which alleges that some top officials of the Nigerian Customs Service have refused to retire despite reaching their due retirement dates.
Obasi-Pherson Help Foundation had petitioned the 10th House alleging that some Assistant Comptrollers and Comptrollers were due for retirement but have blatantly refused to leave the service.
The petition names several senior officers, including Assistant Comptrollers Imam, Umar, and Egwu, as well as Comptrollers Awe, Fatia, and Faith, who are accused of remaining in the service past their retirement periods.
Issuing the summons, the House noted that the CG has a duty as a public officer to explain to Nigerians what the true position is.
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Chooks Oko, the Media Head of the Public Petitions Committee, confirmed that the summons had been issued, emphasizing that the Comptroller General has a duty to clarify the situation.
“Nigerians deserve to know the truth of the matter and it is only the CG that can clarify the situation. We are elected to serve the people and ensuring that all government agencies function effectively is part of that service. In this era when most of our youths are looking for job, it will be wrong for the older ones who are due for retirement to refuse to go” Mike Etaba, Chairman of the Committee on Public Petitions says.
“That is not to say we shall take sides, far from it. We treat each case on merit ensuring that justice is given at all times to the deserving ” he concludes.
In a related development, Oko noted that the Committee has threatened to order the arrest of the Director General and Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC) if she fails to come in person to answer charges on refusal to pay for state-of-the-art software development project installed and deployed to the commission by a private firm, Truid Limited.
The statement added that Truid Limited is alleging a breach of license agreement by NIMC, noting that E. R. Opara, counsel to Truid Limited, stated that the agreement is premised on an arrangement whereby the Truid Limited funded, developed and deployed tokenization system without any financial obligation from NIMC.
Truid was to get returns on her investment through patronage of service providers and the proceeds shared on an agreed ratio. This was to run for an initial period of ten years from 2021 when the software was deployed.
According to the petition, things were going smoothly until the appointment of the new DG of NIMC who has been trying to truncate the agreement.
Reacting to the submissions of the counsels of both the petitioners and the respondents, Chairman of the Committee, Mike Etaba frowned on the continuous absence of the NIMC Director General despite several invitations
“If she fails to show up at the next hearing of this case, we’ll have no option than to ask the Inspector General of police to bring her. How can an official of government treat constituted authority with such levity? We can no longer condone such attitude”.
