The ad-hoc committee of the House of Representatives constituted to interface with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and bank chief executive officers on the January 31 deadline for withdrawal of old naira notes said yesterday that late delivery of invitation letters to invitees stalled the meeting.

Chairman of the committee and majority leader of the House, Ado Doguwa, told his colleagues an hour after they had gathered for the meeting.

Recall that the time for the meeting was 3 pm but Doguwa did not enter room 301 of the new building in the House of Representatives, the venue of the meeting, until 4 pm.

By 4:05, a member of the House, Uyem Idem, was asked to say the opening prayers.

Thereafter, Doguwa told the members of the committee that they had scheduled to meet with the CBN officials yesterday (Wednesday) and subsequently take the bank CEOs today (Thursday).

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He, however, said a communication received from the CBN liaison officer stated that due to late arrival of the letter, the bureaucracy could not work on it.

Doguwa said the meeting with the apex bank had been rescheduled for today by 1 pm, while that with bank CEOs would come up later.

He said: “This is the House ad-hoc committee to interface with the CBN and bank operators with regards to resolving the issue of the phasing out the strategy of the old naira notes and to bring into circulation the new naira notes, among other reasons.

“We also have other factors we have discussed on the floor of the House yesterday and ultimately, the House mandated this ad-hoc committee to come up with a strategy to engage the officials of the CBN and CEOs of the commercial banks.

‘’It is, therefore, my pleasure to, at this point inform members of the committee, first of all, that we scheduled today’s (yesterday) meeting based on the letter we have signed out only with officials of the CBN and we have scheduled bank operators to come up tomorrow (Friday).

“So, it is like we, ab initio, invited them separately based on the nature of the engagement. It is a fact-finding thing and like I always say, this is not something to witch-hunt anyone. It is a simple fact-finding mission by the parliament, which obviously holds the proxy of the Nigerian people. So, we decided to take them separately.

“We have scheduled today for the officials of the CBN and tomorrow for bank operators and CEOs of commercial banks and on that note, I would like to communicate with members of the public that based on communication I just received from CBN, it is that our letter of invitation got to the bank very late yesterday.

“You can all agree with me that the resolution was taken at the end of our sitting yesterday, January 24, 2023, and before we could finish the necessary procedures, the letters were sent to the CBN late.

‘’So, the liaison officer of the bank spoke to us this evening (yesterday) that they were not able to really act on the letter to allow for their engagement today.

“On this note, I would like to convey to this committee and members of the public and the press here with us that we have conceded to allow the CBN officials to come tomorrow (today) by 1pm, so we could engage them and immediately after the engagement with them, we would engage the bank operators.”

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Banks warned against boycotting meetings Doguwa also warned the banks against boycotting the meeting, emphasizing that the summons of the House must be taken very seriously.

The chairman added that no unpopular policies hampering the economy of the country and affecting the people negatively would be allowed to sail through.

“For the purposes of clarification, I want to say without any fear of contradiction that the parliament is always an institution that represents the Nigerian people.

‘’When there is any need it calls for an invitation to any government employee like it is the case here with the CBN, the governor of the CBN, his directors, deputy directors, all departmental heads, I believe our own employees of the Nigerian people, and when there is a kind of summon from the institution of the parliament like this, we expect every up and doing employee to only respect that invitation.

“On this note, I want to say on behalf of the House of Representatives that we have taken this from the point of perhaps, giving them the leverage or benefit of the doubt that yes, the letter got to them late yesterday and on no account, I repeat, would we have a repeat of this failure tomorrow (today).

‘’None of us here is acting in his personal capacity. None of us here is acting for any personal reasons, especially on a matter like this where Nigerian people and economy are threatened by a lot of dangers by the policy of a government department.

“Those of here who are working for the Nigerian people, we cannot sit down here and watch policies of the government that are not unpopular, threaten the survival of our economy to continue.

‘’I hear some of them saying it is a matter they have decided. It is a matter that no one goes back about it. This is the supreme institution of Nigeria’s democracy and I want to say without any fear of contradiction that for whatever policy the government is undertaking, especially at a critical period like this, Nigerians must know and whoever is involved must know that definitely, the interest of the Nigerian people holds sway.

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‘’So, there is no policy whatsoever that cannot be reversed, good or bad, as long as that policy or the reversal of that policy is going to be in the overall interest of Nigerians.

“We would not endanger our economy. We would also not allow anybody to endanger our economy. CBN must appear before this committee of the House of Representatives tomorrow (today) by 1 pm to discuss this very critical matter.

‘’It borders on the survival of our economy and our people, the businesses are shut down all over; agriculture is suffering. petty businesses in the villages are also suffering. I understand that in some places, even dowry, bride price is not being accepted. So, this is a serious issue,” Doguwa said.