The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, on Tuesday, adjourned a public hearing on the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) to another two weeks following the non-appearance of the sponsors of the petitions against the Rector of the Academy, Commodore Duja Effedua.
The petitioners were nowhere at the hearing when Honourable Busayo Oluwole Oke, Chairman of the Committee called them up during the sitting to defend their petitions.
Honourable Oluwole Oke, while expressing that the National Assembly believes in giving fair hearing to all sides of any divide, averred that his committee will provide room for cross-examination of the petitioners.
The Chairman wondered why the petitioners didn’t come for the public hearing, having caused his committee to serve the Rector copies of their petitions and duly invited him and the petitioners to meet in the National Assembly
According to Oke, the committee will not just rely on any petition that the authors are not ready to prove their allegations. He added that writers of such petitions cannot just dump petitions on his committee without coming forward to defend what they wrote
“Are the petitioners here? They can’t just dump petitions on us and not come to defend their petitions and face the Rector. For fair hearing, we copied the Rector of the Academy and we expect the petitioners to be here because he who alleges must prove,” Honourable Oke stated.
The Chairman later mandated the Clerk of the committee to write the petitioners again before adjourning to two weeks time due to the Eid-El Fitri celebration.
Effedua, who also made a brief remark, said the intent behind the petitions was to distort the ongoing successes being achieved in the Academy.
He later submitted a written defence and responses to the petitions on oath which was adopted by the committee.
The Rector disclosed to the committee that over 6,500 petitions have been written against him for which he has been appearing before different anti-graft agencies without any of the petitioners coming forward to defend their petitions.
He said the writer’s intention is to unduly deploy apparatus of the state to derail the school because he stopped the culture of corruption and waste of government resources at the nation’s premier maritime training institution.
“Mr Chairman, honourable members I have had about 6500 petitions. The corruption this committee is fighting is what some persons are using instruments of state to perpetuate.
“They have sent threat messages to me and have planned to poison me because I refused to share money.
“They claim that before I came, money was being shared and they will ensure I am distracted from work. These series of petitions are part of the game plan to keep us disturbed from performing our duties. Since Easter, I have been defending petitions written with fake names and addresses.
“I am ready to always appear when called upon to defend any of the petitions. Since they have been writing, no single individual has shown up as a writer to defend any of these petitions,” the Rector said.
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