Lawmakers in the House of Representatives will on
Friday (tomorrow) hold an emergency session to take a position on the
simmering $3m bribery scandal involving Farouk Lawan, the man heading
the House’s fuel subsidy probe panel.
The Chairman of Zenon Oil, Mr. Femi Otedola, had
accused Lawan of soliciting for a bribe of $3m to remove his firm from
the list of companies indicted by the panel.
The scandal, which broke last week, is fast
spreading. Only on Wednesday, The PUNCH in a exclusive story
reported that police were investigating a fresh allegation that some oil
marketing firms paid another N11bn in bribes to some Representatives.
The two-paragraph notice of the emergency session as
sent by the Clerk of the House, Mohammed Sani-Omolori, reads, “This is
to inform all Honourable members of the House of Representatives that
the House would reconvene to hold a Plenary session on Friday June 15th,
2012 at 10am prompt.
“Honourable members are advised to take note and
attend promptly, please.”
While the notice did not specify agenda for the
emergency session of the lawmakers, a source privy to deliberations at
the meeting informed our correspondent that the session was called
because lawmakers were demanding “urgent and faster response before this
problem gets very messy.”
Speaker of the House, Aminu Tambuwal, was said to
have been under “intense” pressure by members who argued that an
emergency sesssion was needed for the Representatives to take a position
on the raging bribery scandal before it was too late.
Tambuwal reportedly succumbed finally to the demand
for an emergency session at a meeting on Wednesday morning where
Sani-Omolori was directed to issue the notice of the emergency meeting
of the lawmakers .
The PUNCH learnt that the lawmakers were unable to wait till their
Tuesday, June 19, scheduled resumption date from break because most of
them feared that the bribery scandal could get out of hand before then.
Just on Tuesday, spokesman for the lawmakers, Zakari
Muhammed, had insisted that the House would not discuss the Lawan matter
till resumption next Tuesday.
Our correspondent learnt also that Lawan would be
forced to step down from his headship of the subsidy management probe
committee, the work of which had been eclipsed by the raging bribery
allegation.
A high ranking House member told our correspondent on
Wednesday that it would be risky to wait till next Tuesday before
“something is done to rescue the integrity of the House.”
“There are more allegations now; today we heard that
the panel members reportedly demanded or received N11bn as bribes from
some marketers. Then, there is the ongoing $3m allegation.
“We don’t know what may come up tomorrow”, the
lawmaker confided in The PUNCH in Abuja.
Another lawmaker who chairs one of the ‘powerful’
committees of the House said, “The position of our colleagues is that we
need to act fast. Yes, we wanted to remain on break till Tuesday next
week. We didn’t think initially that this matter warranted calling off
our break, but the scandal became unbearable.
“Delaying till next week without acting will create
room for endless speculation and more allegations. So, on Friday, we
shall take a clear stance on the matter and commit it to investigation;
all allegations will be referred for investigation.”
The lawmaker added, “Members may not be favourably
disposed to his (Lawan)holding any post in the House in the light of the
allegations against him and the ad hoc committee on fuel subsidy.
“We need to conduct an unfettered investigation.”
However, the fresh allegation of a N11bn bribe
enraged some lawmakers on Wednesday.
Our correspondent reports that more lawmakers may be
probed in order to identify those who shared the bribes.
One lawmaker exclaimed, “Aah! These things ($3m and
N11bn) will swallow a lot of people.
“Many people will go down because it is not possible
that only eight members of an ad hoc committee shared N11bn.
“You see, I warned the committee members to be
careful but it appeared they didn’t listen.”
The PUNCH
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