By Ameh Ejekwonyilo
Abuja
Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have dragged the National Assembly before a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja.
In an originating summon filed and dated May 2, 2014, by the plaintiffs’ counsel, Chief Mike Ozekhome, the applicants are seeking, amongst other reliefs, a declaration of court that: “By virtue of the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as altered, particularly Sections 88, 89 and 214 thereof, the Respondents (National Assembly) or any of their Committees are not legally and Constitutionally empowered and/or competent to personally/physically probe or conduct investigation into allegations of fraud, corruption or other criminal activities said to have occurred in the agencies under the Applicants’ supervision or control, when there exist agencies that are legally and constitutionally empowered to carry out or conduct such investigations into alleged fraud or other criminal conducts and prosecute offenders upon conclusion of their investigations.”
Diezani is also seeking an order of “perpetual injunction restraining the Respondents whether by themselves, servants, staff, committees, privies, proxies or any other persons howsoever called from further conducting direct personal or physical probe, inquiry and/or investigation into any alleged fraud, corruption or other criminal activities in the agencies under the Applicant’s supervision or control.”
In the originating summon supported by an eight paragraph affidavit deposed to by one Mr. Dominic C.U Ezerioha, the plaintiffs alleged that “between January, 2013,and now, the Applicants and agencies under them have been serially, continually and constantly invited by the respondents or their various Committees the applicants are disturbed by the sheer avalanche of these invitations, most, or almost all, of which have nothing to do with the way and manner in which both Houses of the National Assembly or their Committees.”
