Arising from a seating of the House of Representatives ad hoc panel probing the status of the Treasury Single Account (TSA), the House has resolved to issue an arrest warrant against the Managing Director of the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dakuku Peterside.
The ad hoc panel being chaired by Rep Abubakar Nuhu Danburam at a session on Thursday said the NIMASA boss, who was a member of the House during the 7th Assembly, has been taking them for a ride; consistently failing to appear before it.
Ad hoc panel chairman Danburam said Peterside has turned down several letters sent to him to appear and clear the air on the remittances made by NIMASA to the TSA.
“He neither responded to the letters nor deemed it fit to appear,” Danburam stated.
He said being a former member of the House, Peterside is well abreast of all the legislative procedures, but that he ignored all that for reasons best known to him.
Infuriated by the development, some members of the panel moved that the committee should approach the whole House to obtain an arrest warrant to be signed by Speaker Yakubu Dogara for Peterside to be arrested and presented to testify.
“What we’ve done so far is that a motion has been moved that NIMASA DG has been failing to appear before us despite several letters. He is a former member of this House, and he knows how the procedure is.
“We’ll be presenting a request before the plenary to ask that an arrest warrant be issued against him. As for bank CEOs that aren’t here, we have discussed with some of them. We’ll give them another date. But if you’re not a CEO here, you can take your leave,” he said.