Recuse Yourself From Probe, PenCom Tells Reps C’ttee Chair

The National Pension Commission has asked Hon. Ehionzuwa Johnson Agbonayinma, the House of Representatives member representing Egor/Ikpoba-okha of Edo State to excuse himself from continuing to chair the Ad-hoc committee probing the commission.

This was contained in a statement signed by the acting Director-General of the commission, Aisha Dahir-Umar, addressed to the Speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara, and which was made available to THE WHISTLER on Tuesday.

Recall that a committee was set by the Green Chamber to investigate the activities of PenCom from April 2017 to date.

However, the commission noted that in the course of the investigative activities which began in November 2018, several developments have occurred which has proven Agbonayinma to lack the requisite impartiality to preside over the ad-hoc committee’s investigative proceeding due to his alleged conflict of interest and demonstration of bias in its proceeding.

The commission said it has no doubt that it would not get justice in the investigation due to the following developments:

“Mr. Speaker may wish to note that that the commission arrived at the above conclusion not out of mere apprehension but as a result of concrete likelihood of bias demonstrated by various incidence and developments since the commencement of the investigative activities of the ad-hoc committee. The following are some of the incidence that clearly shows conflict in interest situations and partially on the part of the chairman of the ad-hoc committee;

“The ad-hoc committee held a public hearing on 7 February 2019 where the commission and other stakeholders made presentations .the additional documents requested from the commission at the public hearing were submitted to the ad-hoc committee. In spite of that, however the chairman called for and held another public hearing on Tuesday 9, April 2019, with another public hearing scheduled for Thursday 18, April 2019. the nature of the proceedings of these multiple hearing left no one in doubt that the objective was to malign the officers of the commission and unjustly impugn the reputation of the commission.

“The chairman is personally unhappy with the commission because his daughter, who secured employment with fake certificates, was disengaged by the commission. He had exhibited his antagonism and bitterness in the media.

“The ad-hoc committee consistently named and focused its investigations on three officers of the commission due to the erroneous perception that there were involved in the sack of the chairman’s daughter from the commission.”