Senate walks out NIMASA representative, give reasons

The Senate, Tuesday walked out the representative and other staff of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA from its public hearing.

For failing to honour its invitation, the Senate has however vowed to sanction NIMASA Director General, Dakuku Peterside if he fails to appear in person before it during its rescheduled meeting.

Dakuku was to appear before the National Assembly joint Committee investigating activities of foreign vessel owners.

The Joint National Assembly committee on Local Content, Petroleum Downstream and Legislative Compliance is currently investigating the breach of Nigerian laws by foreign vessel in the coastal region of the country.

The leader of the NIMASA team was not allowed to introduce himself before he was asked to explain his mission and on what capacity he was appearing before the panel.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Local Contents, Senator Teslim Folarin, and his colleague in the House of Representatives, Legor Idagbo, lamented the decision of the Peterside to shun the invitation despite several reminders.

Speaking on the shunning by the NIMASA boss, Folarin who described the action of Dakuku as unfortunate, Folarin said, “It is very unfortunate that men in position of authority would flagrantly shun the invitation of the senate. I spoke with Peterside about this event. He was supposed to come three weeks ago but he didn’t come.

“We rescheduled this event because of him. I called him and asked him to pick a date and he picked today, only for him to write tge Clerk three days ago that the Senate Committee was coming to see him.

“This is an investigative hearing which supersede any other engagement. We won’t sit here and be wasting our time. We will give him one more chance, just one chance. If he failed to honour the next invitation, we know what to do.”

On his part, Idagbo, who is the Chairman of the House Committee on Local Content who took a swipe at the action of the NIMASA boss, said, ” I think we should be ashamed of ourselves as Nigerians. A situation where invitations are sent out and all we get are excuses. I’m aware that Senator Folarin had conversation with the DG of NIMASA and he picked this date.

“The DG went through his calendar and picked this date only for him to send representatives to us today. This committee’s invitation got first before that of the House, but he chose to ignore us.

“What the DG of NIMASA should have done is to explain to the House Committee that he already had an invitation to an investigative hearing from this joint committee. He could even honour our invitation and still meet up with his appointment with the House committee.

” We cannot continue like this as a country. We sit down at the comfort of our offices and live large. We copy what happens in other countries yet we failed to do what they do there. We fail to respect constituted authority.

“You people (NIMASA) should be ashamed of yourself. How do we move forward as a country if we continue like this? What engagement is more important than this type of investigative hearing. This type of attitude is unacceptable.”