N’Assembly can’t probe me without Jonathan’s permission – Diezani

Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison- Madueke, has said the National Assembly cannot investigate her on the allegation of spending N10bn to charter a jet without first obtaining the consent of President Goodluck Jonathan. She argues that both the Senate and the House of Representatives or their committees lack the power to even summon her to appear before them for the purpose of the probe without Jonathan’s consent. The minister and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation made these submissions in an affidavit they filed in support of a fresh suit before a Federal High Court in Abuja to stop the probe. The suit was filed last week but the affidavit was obtained by our correspondent on Sunday. The minister and the NNPC, who are the applicants in the suit, sued the Senate and the House of Representatives as the first and second respondents respectively, in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/ CS/346/2014. The supporting affidavit deposed to by Dominic Ezerioha, a lawyer in the law firm of Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), who filed the suit on behalf of the applicants, stated, “That by law, the respondents are enjoined to seek the consent of the President before ordering the applicants to tender the official unpublished papers, books, and records. “All the documents being requested of the applicants by the respondents are unpublished official records, and the respondents in all their invitations have never shown to the applicants, any such evidence of presidential consent, after numerous demands made by the applicants that they do so.” No date has been fixed for the hearing of the fresh suit and the respondents have yet to file their defence. Meanwhile, a similar suit which the minister had earlier filed, would be coming up for hearing before Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday (May 26). Attached to the fresh suit are 41 exhibits, which are mainly letters of invitation, which the National Assembly had been serving on the NNPC and the office of the minister for the purpose of probing the activities in the oil industry, since 1999. The House of Representatives has asked the minister to appear before it to answer questions relating to the scandal on June 17. But Ozekhome argued that the law required the Senate and the House of Representatives to first obtain the President’s consent before they could validly summon his clients “to tender the official unpublished papers, books, and records”. He cited Sections 88 and 89 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended and Section 8 of the Legislatives Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act Cap. L12 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2010, to back his claims.