By Nuel Suji – Suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Babachir Lawal, again on Thursday, failed to appear before the Senate adhoc committee on mounting humanitarian crisis in the north east .
The Panel had written Babachir on Wednesday, asking him to appear before its hearing today, Thursday.
Babachir absent before the Committee on Thursday will make third time that the suspended SGF shunned the committee invitation.
Addressing the newmen after the Committee waited endlessly for the suspended SGF, the Chairman of the Panel, Senator Shehu Sani said the suspended SGF security chased away officials who went to deliver invitation to him in his house.
He explained that the committee decided to fix the hearing to Thursday (today) based on request from Babachir who said he was not given fair hearing on the matter.
The chairman of the Committee however assured that failure Babachir to appear before the Committee will not stop the committee from submitting its report by next week.
In his words,”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 fulfillment 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.”
On his part, Ben-Murray Bruce, senator representing Bayelsa east and member of committee, said if Lawal had showed up they would have been able to clarify some issues.
“I think it is sad that he did not show up. We are disappointed with the whole process,” he said.
It could be recalled that the interim report of the Shehu Sani committee adopted by the Senate last December, Babachir was accused of retaining directorship of a company, Rholavision, while being the SGF.
