Emma Okonji

There is growing concern among some Nigerians over the inability of the House of Representatives to make good its threat to arrest Director-General of National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Mrs. Bisoye Coker-Odusote, for failure to appear before it to answer questions bordering on alleged breach of contract.

The House had summoned Coker-Odusote over the commission’s refusal to pay for a state-of-the-art software development project executed by a private company, Truid Limited.

The House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions invited the NIMC director-general to appear before it to explain the commission’s failure to pay for the job executed by Truid Limited for NIMC.

Coker-Odusote had yet to honour the committee’s invitation in person.

The House committee chairman, Hon. Mike Etaba was angered by the NIMC DG’s failure to appear before the committee to personally address the allegation after repeated invitations. Last month, Etaba issued a stern warning to order the Inspector-General of Police to arrest her if she did not appear before the committee at its next hearing, which was fixed for March 13.

However, more than two weeks after the committee’s sitting of March 13, there was no indication that Coker-Odusote honoured the committee’s invitation by personally appearing before it.

During the committee’s sitting of February11, the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions had threatened to order the director-general’s arrest.

The committee said it would make good the threat if Coker-Odusote failed to come in person.

In a statement by Media Head, Public Petitions Committee of the House of Representatives, Chooks Oko, the committee chairman stated, “If she fails to show up at the next hearing of this case, we’ll have no option than to ask the Inspector-General of Police to bring her.”

The statement added that the private company, Truid Limited, which executed the state-of-the-art software development project, was alleging a breach of licence agreement by NIMC. It said E. R. Opara, counsel to Truid Limited, stated that the contract was premised on an arrangement whereby the Truid Limited funded, developed and deployed the “tokenisation system project” without any financial obligation from NIMC.

But in a new development, THISDAY gathered that the matter had been stepped down for now, with a plan to take the case on an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) route.

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