The House of Representatives Committee on Nutrition and Food Security has issued a stern warning to the Managing Director of the Bank of Agriculture, BOA, Ayo Sontinrin, and the Director-General of the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, ARCN, Dr. Abubakar Adamu Dabban, over their repeated absence from its investigative hearings on the alleged mismanagement of N1.2 trillion in agricultural intervention funds.
At the committee’s resumed hearing in Abuja on Tuesday, Chairman Hon. Chike Okafor cautioned that a bench warrant of arrest would be issued should the officials fail to appear as summoned.
He recalled previous sittings, noting that: “The Committee held the maiden Investigative Hearing on 8th April, 2025 with the Central Bank of Nigeria in attendance led by Hamman Kwali John, Acting Director of the Finance Development Department, among other notable invitees.
“The 2nd Hearing held on 16th June, 2025 with the attendance of Central Bank of Nigeria and the Participating Financial Institutions, PFIs, still indebted to CBN under the Anchor Borrower Programme. Sterling Bank’s representative absorbed the bank from any indebtedness to which the CBN responded through a letter to the Committee dated June 25th, 2025 to affirm the position of Sterling Bank that it does not have any outstandings.”
Okafor explained that some institutions had demonstrated transparency by honoring invitations, submitting records, and presenting verifiable evidence showing they were not involved in fund misuse. These organizations, he said, would receive commendation in the committee’s final report.
However, he criticized the Bank of Agriculture, the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, and the National Agricultural Land Development Council for repeatedly ignoring invitations or giving what he called very flimsy excuses.
He said: “This is totally unacceptable. The Bank of Agriculture only responded with the excuse of having a new Managing Director and I wrote back to the MD to say, that the bank is an ongoing concern, that having a new MD is not enough reason not to honour the invitation of this panel.
“I sincerely hope that the Bank of Agriculture and the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria will be present tomorrow (Wednesday) because the public hearing continues tomorrow. We are not the police but this a quasi-judicial institution. If we don’t see them tomorrow, we would have to invoke all the powers of the parliament to make them appear before us.”
Meanwhile, the committee also queried Prospect Micro-Finance Bank over discrepancies in funds disbursed and recovered under agricultural support programmes.
The bank’s Managing Director, Isaac Inwang, told lawmakers that N14.6 million was provided to support 30 poultry farmers, out of which N6 million had been recovered and kept pending further directives from the CBN.
But the CBN disagreed, stating that N15.5 million was released, not N14.6 million. A deputy director at the apex bank, Hassan Tom, asserted that the microfinance bank violated regulations by holding recovered funds for over three years instead of remitting them promptly as required.
Following the session, the committee instructed Prospect Micro-Finance Bank to submit all relevant documents by Wednesday, November 19, and be prepared to address inconsistencies raised by the CBN and issues noted in their presentation.
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