In response to the officials of the Presidential Amnesty Programme’s failure to account for the misuse of N10 billion intended for the program, the Senate has decided to issue an arrest warrant for them. Senator Matthew Urhogbide, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Account, stated that the inability of Retired Col. Milland Dikio, the Interim Administrator of the Scheme, to accept the Committee’s invitation about the suspected financial fraud, made the decision unavoidable. The senator pointed out that Dikio had been invited to testify before the committee over a concern expressed about the program in the Auditor General of the Federation’s 2018 report.
According to documents discovered, the Interim Administrator of PAP was scheduled to appear on 3rd February 2022, in a letter dated the same year on 25th January, but he never did. He was invited to come on the 16th of June in a letter dated 19th May that was still in 2022, but he never returned the invitation. In a letter dated 28th June, he most recently extended an invitation for 5th July. He also disregarded all previous invitations extended to participate in the Presidential Amnesty Program. Speaking about the PAP officials’ continued unwillingness to appear before the Panel, Senator Urhogbide said it was disrespectful for an organization to refuse to appear before the National Assembly to account for the funds spent after requesting appropriation from the National Assembly.
He claimed that the committee’s only choice is to obtain an arrest warrant for the PAP’s accounting officer. The Chairman said, “They have consistently refused to appear before the Committee, which is very unfortunate.
“We will issue a warrant of arrest on the Accounting officer of the PAP. We have left with no other option than to explore that option.”
