Kebbi State House of Assembly has asked the police to arrest former governor Usman Saidu Dakingari for his failure to appear before a House committee over alleged contract fraud.
The order was issued yesterday after the former governor failed to honour several invitations to appear before the panel.
The House last week gave the former governor up to yesterday to appear before it but when he failed to do so it decided to issue a subpoena.
He was required to appear for questioning regarding his role in the award of the state airport multi-billion naira airport contract.
The N18 billion airport contract was awarded by Dakingari’s government but the legislators are now investigating a report that the contract had been inflated by N6.4 billion.
During yesterday’s sitting, the Speaker, Alhaji Samaila Abdulmumini Kamba informed members that the Clerk of the House had confirmed to him that Dakingari did not appear as expected.
Following this, a member from Bunza constituency, Aminu Muhammed Bunza raised a motion for his arrest to compel him to appear before the house.
He said: “We have given him all the available opportunity to appear before us. We had invited him on two occasions but he didn’t honour our invitation. For this we should issue arrest warrant on him.”
His motion was seconded by the Deputy Speaker, Muhammadu Buhari Alieru and, thereafter, passed unanimously.
The Speaker said: “We have decided to issue arrest warrant on the former governor through the Commissioner of Police.”
While speaking to journalists, the deputy speaker, Alieru said their decision was not politically motivated. He said the House had also written to the companies involved in the airport contracts and was still awaiting their responses.
When contacted a former Special Adviser to Dakingari, Alhaji Ibrahim Musa Argungu told our correspondent that they were already studying the resolution of the state house of assembly on the former governor and would soon respond to it. “Dakingari has not been served and we are also yet to be served but we are still studying the situation very soon we will respond appropriately to their resolution,” he said.
