The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has shunned the invitation of the police Special Investigating Panel over allegations of budget padding.
The snub according to investigations by Punch was connected to the fact that the invitation letter was not signed by the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris.
The panel had in a letter to Dogara requested him and others mentioned in the petition to appear before it last Friday.
The Speaker, however, did not honour the invitation. Rather, he met with President Muhamadu Buhari over the budget crisis on Friday.
While Dogara’s accuser and a former House Appropriation Chairman, Abdulmumin Jibrin, appeared before the panel last week Friday and on Tuesday, Dogara and other principal officers shunned it.
A committee chairman close to Dogara who spoke on condition of anonymity told Punch that although an invitation was sent to the Speaker last week by the police, the document was “considered to be informal because it was signed by a low-ranking officer.”
He said, “The Speaker is the number four citizen of this country.
“If you are sending a letter to him, there should be a signature of the Inspector-General of Police on it.”
