*You’re acting childishly, ex-Minister tells C’ttee Chairman
*C’ttee Chair alleges Centenary is owned by 2 Nigerians
*You’re not qualified to chair this hearing, Anyim tells chairman

By Emman Ovuakporie and Johnbosco Agbakwuru

THERE was a mild drama yesterday as Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Federal Capital Territory, FCT were grilling former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim over alleged irregularities in the agreement on Centenary City.

The drama started immediately the Deputy Minority Leader of the House, Hon Chukwuka Onyeama, PDP, Anambra representing the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara finished reading his welcome address at about 10.45am at the investigative hearing on the Centenary City Project.

The former Senate President then requested the Speaker’s representative to wait because he wanted to make an observation before the investigative hearings could proceed.

Anyim Pius Anyim

At this point, chairman of the House Committee on FCT, Herman Hembe yielded the floor to the former SGF to make his presentation.

He started reading his presentation and towards the end of his three page presentation said: “When the former Managing Director of Security and Exchange Commission accused you of demanding bribe from her, you pushed for her sack and I refused to sack her while I was Secretary to Government of the Federation. I will not allow you to use the platform of this committee to victimize me”.

Immediately he read that portion, the air was rented by ‘Point of Order, point of Order, point of Order. No, no, no, no, no. Hold on.  The following dialogue then ensue:

Hembe:”The former Senate President cannot assume the chairman of the committee, it’s not fair.

Anyim:Please sir, I have the privilege to be heard. Okay, let us not get overheated. Mr Chairman, distinguished Hon. members, let me just say briefly.

Hembe:Hold on, I am going to allow him to finish but hold on.

Let me just say that we are a house of free lawmakers, we are a house of order. We are a house of due process. Let me just say to the former President of the Senate and the former SGF that in my opening remarks, I tried to show you courtesy. Please, don’t interrupt, as far as this hearing is concerned, I’m the chairman here and I would not allow you to usurp that position.

I am here on no account of yours. I have shown you respect. I even made a comment in the beginning that you ought not to appear by saying clearly that it was brought to my attention by certain quarters that we shouldn’t have invited the former Senate President to a hearing like this out of respect. It’s just respect for the fact that he’s been Senate President and I took note of that and spoke to my colleague chairman in the Senate, Senator Dino Melaye last night.

“I asked him to communicate with the former Senate President and ask if we could excuse him today. It doesn’t mean that if we excuse him we won’t write to request for such information later. What we are doing here bothers on his activities as Secretary to Government of the Federation.

“For the former Senate President to impute bias when he does not even know what we are doing here, we have not even said a word and he’s already inputting bias, I will like to ask you…..

At this point, Anyim interrupted

Hembe:Do not interrupt me, do not interrupt me, I reject that. Let me finish. Sit down, you cannot, let me finish.

Hon. Members, let me say this to the former Senate President. Former Senate President and SGF, hold on. Like I said earlier, we will allow everybody the opportunity to speak here but I’m a little dismayed that for someone who was invited for this programme and felt he ought not to be invited, has already delved into the subject matter, I would allow Senator Pius Anyim an opportunity to go ahead and finish his statement.

When he finishes, we will rule and there’s no way he or anybody can attempt to disrupt this proceeding, this proceeding will be concluded today. Nothing will change and so you can go ahead and make your statement and make any imputation you want to make, when you are done, we will continue, I so rule.

Anyim:Thank you Mr Chairman, I think that’s what I expected you to really do. I should be able to state my position then you rule.

Mr chairman, I said, one:That you have told everybody who cares to listen that when the former DG of Security and Exchange Commission accused you of demanding bribe from her, you pushed for her to be sacked and I refused to sack her while I was SGF and so this is an opportunity for you to pay me back. Mr chairman, I would not allow you to use the National Assembly platform to pursue this personal vendetta, it’s not acceptable and I will not submit to it because it offends the rule of fair hearing and all I’m asking for is fair hearing.

Two, Mr Chairman, you have been threatening to conduct this public hearing for over a year now. In fact, you ended last year with it and this year, you started again with it. You scheduled it for 27th of January and you later moved it to 1st of February  and again moved it to 3rd of February. Mr Chairman, we only discovered your game plan for all the postponements when you started sending messages to the  Managing Director to come and see you privately.

“ It was after all your efforts to get the Managing Director to come and see you privately failed that you confirmed this date. I want you to know that nobody will see you privately and we are here for the hearing and we will have the hearing.

Mr Chairman, Honourable members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, I am convinced that Mr Chairman has a deep-seated personal interest and bias in this matter and so, he’s not in a position to guarantee fair hearing to myself, the Centenary City management and indeed to the entire subject matter. I therefore accordingly demand that Mr Chairman should disqualify himself and let the Vice Chairman take over and let us continue.

“ So Mr chairman, you should hand over to your Vice and excuse us to continue. But if you are unable to disqualify yourself, there’s no reason anybody will submit himself to a system and an arrangement that does not guarantee fair hearing. So, we are here for the hearing, we are ready for the hearing but we should get fair hearing. Thank you Mr chairman.

Hembe:Thank you, this is a straight forward matter. Thank you very much Mr former Senate President. No, don’t worry, we are here for this hearing and we should just allow this matter to proceed. Mr former Senate President, Senator Pius Anyim, we invited you here for the public hearing.

And like I said in one forum and I remember it categorically, that if I had sent messages, messages are beautiful things, they are basically on phones and they remain there. Such a person is free from those kinds of documents to forward it and say this is how Hon. Hembe has contacted me or whatever.

Thank you for your contributions, we have excused you at the beginning of this programme, the excuse is still open and if you want to take the option of the excuse as a former presiding officer of the Senate, you are free. On the strength of that, my ruling here is that I’m going to preside over  this public hearing and this public hearing will continue.

Immediately after his ruling, the hearing was adjourned for 10minutes, after Anyim left the venue. The hearing was then reconvened and Hembe continued with the hearing

At this stage, he summoned the former Infrastructure Development Cordinator in the FCT, Mr Farouk Sani to tell the committee all he knew about the land swap deal.

Hembe; Farouk according to the gazzette, the agreement to build a city says it must be completed within 48months but what was signed read between 60 and 120months

Farouk: “The gazzette is just a guideline used in carrying out the project nothing else.

At this point, Hon Linus Okorie wanted to ask Farouk a question but the chairman(Hembe) objected and ruled him out.

This did not go down well with Okorie who reacted shouting “I’m a bonafide member of this committee and a representative of my constituents I demand you withdraw that your ruling immediately.

Hembe: “I’ve withdrawn it, let us forge ahead now.

He now ordered that the Manging Director of Centenary City Project Dr Ike Odenigwe be sworn in to defend the position of his company on the alleged illegalities.

The first lawmaker to question the MD was Hon Jagaba Adams Jagaba.

Jagaba: How did you get to know about the Centenary project?

Odenigwe:The legacy project advertised in newspapers and we applied as a company with the global link that can do it.

Hembe: Do you have copies of the newspapers of such multiple billion naira project and will you agree that the then Mr President’s directive was flouted by the SGF. In his letter he had directed that all agreements should reflect the land swap arrangement.

At this point, Linus Okorie threw more light on the issue saying:

“Three advertorials were placed in the national newspapers and what we should be asking now is to ask the office of the SGF to check their records and provide them in our next hearing.

Also, Hon Ayo Omidiran, APC, Osun pointed out that”it’s out of place to flout President Jonathan’s directive and they did what they wished….

Former Minister of FCT, Bala Mohammed interjected declaring that”I think at this stage I want to be sworn in haba!

Bala: I’ll respond when asked specific questions on this issue as it appears there is a communication gap in this whole gamut. You are behaving childishly

At this point the lawmakers started shouting, displaying the constitution which empowers them that questions must be answered when summoned.

The lawmakers shouted ‘take it back’!

Bala: I’ll not take it back, take me to court.

Hembe: As a former Senator your conduct should be above board.

Bala then continued saying “only two companies own the City Project and they are Basic Start Company Ltd and Company First Ltd with share capital of 10,000 respectively.

“The shareholders Mr Paul Oki and Boma Ozobia were allocated 1,267hectares of land in the FCT.

Hembe: “My ruling: the offices of the SGF, FCT must explain to us why the project was allocated such expanse of land and documented evidence must be produced at the next hearing scheduled for next week Tuesday.