Jonathan can’t stop Deziani’s appearance before N’Assembly -Senate

Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources ( Downstream ), Senator Magnus Abe,  has said President Goodluck Jonathan cannot stop Petroleum Resources Minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke,  from appearing before any committee of the National Assembly.

Abe, who stated this in an interview with some journalists in Abuja on Saturday, therefore warned appointees of the Federal Government from using the name of Jonathan to challenge the powers of the National Assembly.

Alison-Madueke, who is being probed by the House of Representatives over an allegation that she spent N10bn on a chartered aircraft, has argued that the National Assembly could not investigate her without first obtaining the consent of Jonathan.

The   minister and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, who made the submissions in an affidavit they filed in support of a fresh suit   before an Abuja Federal High Court to stop the probe, maintained that  the House Committee on Public Accounts lacked the power to even summon her to appear before it.

But Abe insisted that the minister and the NNPC management would have been summoned by his committee if not for its pre-occupation with the consultants working on the Petroleum Industry Bill, which according to him, has reached an advanced stage.

He said, “As far as the National Assembly is concerned,  our constitutional powers and responsibilities are clear; anybody in the Federal Republic of Nigeria required to answer questions with the National Assembly will appear.

“If on the contrary the court gives an order to that respect, we will not disobey the court order but such order would be vigorously contested by the National Assembly.

“Any minister, who at this point, begin to use the name of the President to challenge the powers of the National Assembly, is not doing the President any favour because the President needs the National Assembly more than he needs the minister.

“If it becomes a choice between any minister and the National Assembly,  no President will choose a minister above the National Assembly. It is not something that we need to contest in court. We can contest it politically. The minister will still appear.

“Anybody, who is aware of how politics runs in the world, would know that any minister doing that is clearly naive. He or she is unaware of how country functions.

“I think that maybe, somebody’s lawyers might have advised them to do that kind of thing but when political reality begins to hit the ground, you will see that both the minister and the lawyers will run away from that brief.”

BY SUNDAY ABORISADE/ The Punch