SGF Babachir Lawal Mr Babachir Lawal, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation on Thursday have a change of mind about his decision not to honour the invitation to attend the public hearing of the the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Humanitarian Crisis in North-East.
The SGF who had earlier indicated that he will not attend the public asked the committee to reschedule to enable him to attend the session.
In a letter to the committee dated March 22, 2017, Babachir said he would not be able to honour the invitation of the committee to him to appear at a public hearing on Thursday due to an engagement.
The ad hoc committee headed by Sen. Shehu Sani is investigation alleged misappropriation in the management of the funds for the rehabilitation of the North-East.
The office of the SGF is coordinating the “project’’ hence he was invited to a public hearing on the issue by the committee.
At the first invitation late 2016, he did not attend and the committee indicted him.
In his reaction, he decried the action of the committee, claiming that he was not given fair hearing, having not honoured the invitation.
The committee in a letter dated March 15, 2017, invited the SGF to a second public hearing on the matter as part of the investigation and asked him to come on Thursday.
In the letter, the committee indicated that the essence of the second public hearing was to give fair hearing, particularly to stakeholders who refused to attend the first hearing.
But, in a letter to the Chairman of the committee on Wednesday, the SGF said that rather than attend the hearing, he was challenging the invitation at the court.
However, in another letter on Thursday, Lawal appealed to the committee to reschedule the hearing to enable him attend.
“I wish to kindly request that you draw the attention of the members of the committee that I will not be able to appear before it primarily because of the pressing engagement of government which clashed with the date and time of the hearing,’’ he said.