The House of Representatives Committee on Rural Development has threatened to invoke the provision of the 1999 Constitution as amended to compel the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Temitope Fashedemi, to appear before it.
The chairman of the Committee, Marcus Onubun, who spoke at the meeting between the Committee and the Ministry, expressed displeasure that the permanent secretary “has consistently ignored the invitation from the Committee and has, on five occasions, failed to honour such invitations.”
Onubun said the Committee had decided to give the permanent secretary another opportunity to appear before it “as a mark of respect for the two ministers in the Ministry who are products of the National Assembly – Senator Abubakar Kyari from Borno state and the Minister of State, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, from Niger state, served in the 9th National Assembly.”
He said, “This is about the fifth meeting we have had in this Committee on Rural Development and the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has refused to appear.
“I would like to correct one notion because the Director said he is not here to answer a query. This Committee is constitutionally bound to query every of your activities in terms of projects and policies of your ministry. If you don’t know, you must understand now that it is our responsibility.
“Members seated here represent over 200 million Nigerians. We put all our activities aside to have on the spot assessment of the ministry and we came to you because we wanted to work with you so that Nigerians will get the dividends of democracy through rural development. The permanent secretary was not at that meeting.
“If the permanent secretary likes, he should choose to ignore that invitation. Then we will know who is dancing behind whom at the end of the day. The permanent secretary should appear before this Committee on Tuesday, May 21.”
