Senate gives Kyari, NUPRC boss 24 hours to defend budget

The Chairman of the Senate Appropriation Committee, Senator Adeola Olamilekan, has ordered the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, to in 24 hours appear before the committee.

The committee chairman, on Wednesday, also asked Kyari to be present in the company of the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission.

The oil agency had earlier ignored summons by the Senate to appear before its committee over probing of over N11trn expenditure on turnaround maintenance of refineries in the country between 2010 and 2023 for a second time.

The committee demanded they present the list of all individual companies operating with OML licences in Nigeria and the total production output approved daily.

Olamilekan, however, warned that failure to show up sabotages the legislature.

The House of Representatives Committee on Public Petition had ordered the arrest of the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Olayemi Cardoso; Accountant General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Madein; and 17 others, over failure to appear before it for questioning on their functions.

The motion for the arrest was moved on Tuesday by Fred Agbedi of the Peoples Democratic Party (Bayelsa), noting that the arrest was unavoidable due to the behaviour of those invited as they had been invited more than thrice without showing up.

The Managing Directors of  National Petroleum Investment Management Services, Ethiop Eastern Exploration and Production Company Ltd, Western Africa Exploration and Production, Alteo Eastern E&P Co. Ltd., First Exploration & Production Ltd., First E&P Oml 8385 Jv, Heirs Holdings Oil and Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, are listed as part of the 17 CEOs to be arrested.

Others include Shell Petroleum Development Company, Total Exploration & Producing Nig, Nigeria Agip Oil Company, Pan Ocean Oil Nig, Ltd., Newcross E&P Ltd and Frontier Oil Ltd.