The Senate has revealed plans to summon the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Port Authority (NPA), Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Dangote Group, and Minister of State for Petroleum, Heineken Lokpobiri among others, for questioning over alleged economic sabotage in the country’s petroleum industry.
This was made known by the Leader of the Senate and Chairman of the Senate ad-hoc committee on “Alleged Economic Sabotage in the Nigerian Petroleum Industry” at a media briefing on Thursday.
The chairman disclosed that the 14-member committee constituted on July 23 would investigate billions of dollars spent on turnaround maintenance of the state-owned refineries in the last decade to address deep-seated challenges confronting the industry.
A public hearing scheduled for September 10 is expected to have the contractors handling the turnaround maintenance for the refineries in attendance as the ad-hoc committee prepares to visit Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Warri to engage with key actors in the petroleum industry.
In their separate remarks, members of the committee vowed to unravel the rot in the sector, declaring that it will no longer be business as usual. The committee says there would be no room for sacred cows and it is ready to issue a warrant of arrest to any head of the agency that refuses to honour the invitation for appearance.