Following the failure of the Central Bank of Nigeria and Managing Directors of commercial banks to honour the invitation of the House of Representatives to appear and give explanations on the difficulty being encountered by Nigerians to access the new bank notes, amidst the deadline for the use of the old bank notes, the House has threatened to issue warrant of arrest in line with constitutional provisions, if the invited officials failed to honour the invitation.
At the beginning of the plenary on Thursday, Leader of the House, Alhassan Ado Doguwa had briefed the plenary that it was regrettable that officials from the apex banks expected did not honour the invitation, owing to what they described as late receipt of the invitation letter.
He said having waited, the ad-hoc committee could not do anything, as such, a reminder was written to the apex bank to appear on Thursday at about 1pm, while Managing Directors of Commercial banks were asked to appear by 3pm same day to provide adequate information on the level of the availability of the new bank notes.
However, the Speaker House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila told his colleagues that the CBN has responded to the reminder, in a letter brought through the clerk of the House signed by the CBN’s Deputy Governor cooperate services, the CBN, he said had indicated that Governor of the bank, Godwin Emefiele had travelled with President Muhammad Buhari to Dakar, and therefore, he will not be able to attend the rescheduled meeting.
Gbajabiamila however in his response through a prepared speech, said the letter from the Central Bank did not even accommodate the full details of the letter from the House, requesting the CBN boss to come with some directors.
Gbajabiamila said “the CBN governor is my personal acquittance and friend, and I need to put that out there, but beyond friendship, I along many members of this House have a constitutional duty to discharge for the good of the people we represent”.
Gbajabiamila said “I am speaking directly to the Governor, the directors and MD invited, none of those invited honoured the invitation, this is not acceptable, the resolution of the house was predicated on the fact that the roll out of the new bank notes is on unmitigated failure with dare consequences, the refusal by the CBN to heed the invitation is an insult to the authority of people’s parliament.”
“Therefore, if by the end of today, there is formal disregard to the summons, of this House, I will without hesitation, in pursuant to the authority conferred by section 89, 1D of the constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria and order 19, 2, 1 of standing orders of the House not hesitate to issue a warrant of arrest to the Inspector-General of Police, to compel the attendance of the CBN and or Managing Directors who failed or refused or neglect to attend.”
He added that the House recognizes authority of the CBN to determine the country’s legal tender, and to recall currency with reasonable notice subject to the approval of President, but the same CBN ACT in section 20, sub- section 3, also mandated the CBN to redeem the face values of the recalled currency not minding the deadline imposed, thus the House would see to the implementation of the law.
Gbajabiamila therefore said instead of proceeding on election break, the House will wait to the end of the issue before it will proceed.