Emefiele: House of Reps leader says Rep Kazaure acting on his own over stamp duty accusation

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, said Rep. Gudaji Kazaure is acting alone in his mission to unravel N89 trillion stamp duty allegations against CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele.

Gbajabiamila disclosed this after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday evening.

The meeting with Buhari over the matter followed news that a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja had declined an application by the Department of State Services (DSS) to arrest and detain CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele.

Acting without official function: According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Gbajabiamilia stressed that Kazaure was acting without official function. He said:

• “Kazaure, from my understanding, is working with whoever he’s working with. If it necessitates the House coming in, we will come in. If he has an official function, he should go ahead and do his work, but this has nothing to do with National Assembly. Not that I know of.
• “It was not based on a resolution of the National Assembly. It was not based on a motion from the National Assembly.”

He, however, noted that Kazaure may have been given executive authority, saying:

• ”I believe he said he had executive authority to do what he’s doing. If that be the case, then it’s got nothing to do with the National Assembly.
• ”I think it’s important to separate the two. If he has the mandate to do something, that’s on him.
• “When it came up, we asked members of the executive, and they said they were not aware of any mandate, or such mandate has been withdrawn.
• ”I don’t want to get into it, except to the extent that he attempts to impugn on the integrity of members of the House and that’s a no- no. We have nothing to do with this.
• “We discussed things that came up in the last few weeks, things come up every day in Nigeria, every day and in the last few days, some things have come up.
• ”I’m sure you know some of these things, and I just wanted to get his perspective on them and give him mine and that of the National Assembly’s perspective and position on those matters. We had a fruitful discussion.”

Kazaure’s accusations: Kazaure, a member of the House of Representatives from Jigawa, accused the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, of attempts to cover up facts surrounding the collection of the controversial stamp duty funds.

He urged the president to e allow him to present his Report to him or immediately order a thorough investigation of the alleged stamp duty funds.

In case you missed it: Nairametrics reported earlier that A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja reportedly declined an application by the Department of State Services (DSS) to arrest and detain CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele.

The suit, with reference number FHC/Abj/CS/2255/2022, had the Department of State Services as the applicant.

The DSS was trying to arrest Emefiele over allegations bothering on “acts of financing terrorism, fraudulent activities and economic crimes of national security dimension.”