SAN FRANCISCO, April 27, (THEWILL) – Suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, on Thursday failed to appear before the Senate ad-hoc Committee investigating procurement frauds at the Presidential Initiative for the North East, an intervention agency under the office of the SGF.
Lawal is being accused of awarding contracts to his companies without recourse to due process which led to his suspension by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Senate probe committee, Chaired by Shehu Sani, APC-Kaduna, had written to Lawal on Wednesday, asking him to appear before its hearing on Thursday.
It was the third time Lawal would be invited by the committee out of fair hearing and an opportunity to defend himself but he has never appeared before the Committee.
The committee, led by Shehu Sani, waited for Lawal for at least two hours but Lawal did not show up. After the wait, Shehu informed journalists that the committee would go ahead with its report.
“We are here expecting him to appear before us to make his presentation. We learnt he appeared before the vice-president panel investigating this matter,” Sani said.
“We are here in fulfilment of giving him a fair hearing. Now we have been here since 10am and waited for him and it’s 12. It is clear that he is not appearing.
“We will now go ahead and conclude our interim report. We see this as deliberate to absent himself from the committee.”
THEWILL recalls that the committee submitted its interim report last December and urged President Buhari to suspend and prosecute Lawal.
However, the President wrote back, rejecting the call for action against Lawal saying that the Senate did not extend the principle of fair hearing to the SGF.
