You can’t probe me, Diezani tells lawmakers

MINISTER of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Dieziani Alison-Madueke and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have dragged the National Assembly before a Federal High Court, Abuja, over the private jet scandal. The minister, in the suit, told the lawmakers that they lacked the powers to summon or investigate her. The House Committee on Aviation is probing the N10 billion allegedly spent on hiring private jet for the official use of the minister. But the minister, in a fresh suit she filed through her counsel, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), asked the court to stop the probe on the ground that the committee lacked such powers. Joined as defendants in the matter were the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the suit, she asked the court for an order restraining the respondents or any other persons howsoever called from summoning the applicants or any agencies under the applicants’ supervision or control, to appear before them for the purpose of giving evidence and/or producing any papers, books, records or other documents, which related to the unpublished official records of the applicants without the consent of the rresident of the Federal Republic of Nigeria first and obtained by the respondents or their committees. No date has been fixed for hearing of the substantive case.