BY Jemilat Nasiru
The house of representatives committee on emergency and disaster management has called for the immediate reinstatement of the sacked directors of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
Ali Isa, chairman of the committee, gave the order in Abuja during the continuation of an investigative hearing on breach of public trust brought against NEMA and Mustapha Maihaja, the agency’s director-general.
The directors, numbering six, were said to have been suspended without due process by governing council of the agency, chaired by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.
They are being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), following a petition against them for alleged abuse of office.
On Thursday, the investigating panel summoned Osinbajo, Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of EFCC and Oyo-Ita, head of civil service, to explain their role in the “illegal” suspension of the directors.
In the continued hearing, the panel held that civil service rule was “grossly abused, and natural justice turned upside down”, after Maihaja supposedly failed to produce the EFCC report with which the directors were nailed.
When also confronted with a memo he authored and made available to the governing council of the agency, recommending the suspension of the directors, Maihaja said that he did so pursuant to EFCC report which he said was confidential and cannot be made available committee for whatever reasons.
The committee drew the attention of the NEMA boss to section 88-89 of the 1999 constitution which made it compulsory for all agencies of the government to make available all necessary evidence oral or written to the two chambers of the national assembly during such hearings.
The committee, therefore, ruled that the affected officers have been denied fair hearing as required by law before their suspension.
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