The Federal House of Representatives on Tuesday resolved to summon Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar over his failure to comply with the resolution of the Senate on the arrest and prosecution of Abdulrasheed Maina, chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reform.
Speaker Aminu Tambuwal, who presided over the plenary session emphasised the need for government at all levels to individually and collectively play their roles in ending impunity and disregard for due process in the conduct of government business.
The House, after considering the motion sponsored by Sam Tsokwa, chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, concurred with the resolution of the Senate.
The House also asked the IGP to appear before its Committee on Police Affairs to explain Police response to the warrant of arrest of Maina, whom the Police have since declared missing and is believed to have left the country.
In his lead debate, Tsokwa raised the concurrence under matters of urgent public importance, noting that it would represent the third time both chambers would be concurring on such matters.
Tsokwa, who stressed the need “to present a common front with respect to the institutional integrity of the National Assembly,” argued that there was “the need to send a strong signal to the Executive on the resolve of the National Assembly to stop impunity and disregard for due process in the conduct of government business.”
He urged the House “to concur with the Senate Resolution S/Res/033/02/13 of 13th February 2013 that Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina be dismissed from the Public Service of the Federal Republic of Nigeria immediately and be disengaged from ail acts relating to public duty.
“The powers conferred on the National Assembly are exercisable only for the purpose of enabling it to expose corruption, inefficiency, waste in the execution and administration of laws within its legislative competence and in the disbursement and administration of funds appropriated by it,” he said.
“We are informed that the IPPIS was introduced to enhance efficiency in personnel cost planning and budgeting. Under this policy, personnel cost is based on actual verified number of staff and not estimates. We were further informed that less than half of the federal MDAs have been audited yet a worrying 45,000 ghost workers have been discovered so far.
“The House is aware that Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama revealed at the Council Meeting that over N100bn has been saved through the exercise from 153,019 workers that have been audited so far by system. This was at the end of last month (January, 2013).
He noted that the sad incident of ghost workers is usually sustained by a chain of syndicates and cabals who feed on inflating the actual number of workers while fleecing the nation of tons of billions of naira annually.
“The House is disturbed that this whole incident is filled with a barrage of unclear issues and unanswered questions,” he said.
After consideration of the motion, the House resolved to set up an ad hoc committee to investigate the phenomenon of ghost workers in Federal MDAs.
On 13th February 2013, the Senate had passed Resolution (S/Res/033/02/13), resolving that “Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina be dismissed from the Public Service of the Federal Republic of Nigeria immediately and be disengaged from all acts relating to public duty; that the Inspector General of Police appears before the Committee on Police Affairs to give reasons why he did not act on the Warrant issued by the President of the Senate; and that Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina should be investigated and prosecuted (S/Res/033/02/13).”
