The Nigerian Police has taken a definitive stand concerning the budget padding scandal rocking the Nigerian House of Representatives.
The police have declared that Speaker Yakubu Dogara must face its Special Investigative Panel for questioning.
Also lined up for the proposed interaction are Deputy Speaker Yusuff Lasun, Chief Whip Ado Doguwa, and Minority Leader Leo Ogor.
A highly placed source familiar with the development, in an interview with The Nation, said: “We are going to interrogate the Speaker and the three principal officers implicated in the main petition of the erstwhile Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, Abdulmumin Jibrin.
“Once they return from recess, we will ask them to report. Already, a letter of invitation has been served on them. It is still subsisting.
“The initial argument is that the Speaker is the nation’s number four citizen and the modalities of summoning him ought to be different. But we have checked the statute books, neither Dogara nor any of the principal officers has immunity from investigation and prosecution.
“We have not foreclosed investigation into the alleged budget padding. Whoever is talking of any other solution than this ongoing probe might be referring to another platform.”
About the extent of investigation, the source added: “We have got sufficient documents for preliminary investigation which is already in progress.
“The Clerk of the National Assembly has up till next week to submit the draft and final copies of the 2016 Budget to the panel.
“All we need now is to interact with the four principal officers immediately they return from recess. If they fail to report, the law has a provision for taking card of such.”
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