The house of representatives has
recommended the arrest of Okoi Obono-Obla, senior special assistant to
President Muhammadu Buhari on prosecution.
The house asked Ibrahim Idris,
inspector-general of police, to arrest and prosecute the presidential aide for
allegedly being in possession of a fake West African Examination Council (WAEC)
result.
The house also recommended the
withdrawal of his law degree and law school certificate obtained with the
result.
The lawmakers made the
recommendation on Thursday while adopting the report of its committee that
investigated the special presidential investigative panel for the recovery of
public property (SPIP), which is headed by Obono-Obla.
The committee had said it
discovered irregularities in the O’level result which the presidential aide
has, following a petition to the house by the Human Rights Writers Association
of Nigeria (HURIWA).
The presidential aide is said to
have used the result in question to gain admission into the University of Jos
where he studied and subsequently, the Nigerian Law School.
Femi Ola, deputy WAEC registrar,
had told the committee that “available evidence indicate that the results were
altered and therefore makes them invalid.”
The house also urged Buhari to
relieve Obono-Obla of his appointment, and to dissolve the SPIP “in view of the
arbitrary use of powers and abuse of office by the chairman.”
Other recommendations of the
committee include: ” That the Code of Conduct Bureau should be strengthened to
fill the gap that the panel (SPIP) seek to fill in the current anti-corruption
drive.
“That the Independent Corrupt
Practices Commission (ICPC) should investigate the allegations contained in the
Audit Report of the Auditor General of the Federation of the financial
transactions of the panel and prosecute the culprits.”
This comes six months after the
committee began to probe the presidential aide. He never attended any of its
hearings even though the committee said it had invited him a number of times.
He has since headed to court,
challenging the power of the committee to investigate both the presidential
panel as well as his educational qualifications.
When the allegations were first
made, he had said they were the outcome of “a hatchet job masterminded by some
members of the national assembly who are under investigation by my panel” and
that “the intention is to smear and ridicule me.”
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