The House of Representatives on Tuesday threatened to sanction the Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, and six Area Council Chairmen in the city over insubordination.
A member of the House Committee on FCT Area Council and Ancillary, Ikonne Ifeanyi, made the call during the committee’s meeting in Abuja.
He said it was a show of disrespect and lack of regard for the House that the minister and his council chairmen refused to appear before the lawmakers after they were invited.
He said: “Why must we invite someone here and they give us the date they will appear? What about the risk people took to be there? We should not be seen pleading for them to appear before us.
“My own decision is that they should be the ones to look for us. If we don’t stop this arrogance, it will not stop.
“Henceforth, we will not approve anything for both the minister and the area council chairmen and as a matter of fact, we will tell the president to remove Wike as the FCT minister.
“I hereby move as a motion to bring this to the floor of the house for them to come and explain why they are not honoring our invitation.”
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On his part, the chairman of the committee, Fredrick Agbedi, described the action of the minister and the council chairmen as a breach of their constitutional responsibilities.
He said: “The committee’s oversight function is essential to ensuring accountability and good governance, and this refusal to honour our invitation undermines these efforts.”
The chairman stressed that the chairmen had not flagged off, completed, or commissioned any project in the area councils, unlike the minister.
“This is appalling considering the huge monthly allocation running into billions of Naira to each of the six area councils in the last one year and beyond,” Agbedi added.
He said the committee would not hesitate to invoke its power to ensure that the area councils operate in the best interest of the people.
However, the lawmaker from Oyo State, Nurudeen Abbas, urged his colleagues to give the minister and the chairmen the last chance to appear before them.
“Let’s communicate with them again, and if they fail to appear again, then we should sanction them,” he stated.