The speaker of the house of representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has threatened to issue a warrant of arrest on the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emiefele, over his failure to appear before the house.
Gbajabiamila also threatened to invoke the provisions of section 89(D) of the 1999 constitution to compel Emiefele to appear before the House.
Section 89 gives the parliament power to issue a warrant of arrest on anybody who refuses to honour an invitation from them.
The house, during plenary on Tuesday, January 24, set up an ad-hoc committee to interface with CBN and managing directors of commercial banks on the scarcity of the redesigned naira notes on Wednesday.
The lawmakers also directed the apex bank to extend the deadline for deposit of the old notes by six months, The Nation reports m
However, neither Emefiele nor his representative honoured the House’ invitation for a meeting by 3.00 pm on Wednesday, prompting another invite for Thursday (today).
The speaker, while reading a letter signed by CBN’s deputy governor, corporate services, on Thursday, said that Emefiele will not honour the invitation because he was part of President Buhari’s delegation to Dakar, Senegal.
Gbajabiamila, while reacting to the letter from the apex bank, noted that though the CBN governor is one of his close friends, he and other members of the House have a constitutional duty to perform.
He said that the refusal of Emefiele to honour the invitation or send a representative to the House was not acceptable.
Gbajabiamila added that if Emefiele fails to honour the invitation of the House to discuss the policy, which has caused serious hardship to Nigerians, he will be forced to invoke the provisions of the constitution to issue a warrant of arrest asking the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to compel the CBN governor to honour the invitation of the lawmakers.
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