House Committee Rejects Okonjo-Iweala’s Answers To 50 Questions, Plus The Full 50 Questions List

Nigeria's Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

The Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, failed to answer many of the questions sent to her by members of the House of Representatives Committee on Finance on the ‘true state’ of Nigeria’s economy, the lawmakers have said. In a review of Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala’s response to the 50 questions issued to her by the committee, the lawmakers said some of the questions were “either not answered, partially answered, outrightly ignored or completely misunderstood.”
The lawmakers’ response is contained in a letter addressed to the minister, dated January 31, and signed by the Chairman of the Committee, Abdulmumin Jibrin.
The committee also said it observed several lacuna in the minister’s response.
“The Committee further noted glaring missing gaps in the responses, absence of supporting proofs to assertions and lack of relevant documents to back up the presentation as is the practice in any legislative oversight or investigation.
“Many data and statistics provided were inconsistent with subsequent information provided while answering other questions,” the committee said.
 
The 50 questions
The 50 questions were issued to the finance minister on December 19, 2013 by the committee. The questions bordered on the state of Nigeria’s economy.
Though the committee gave her two weeks to respond, the minister sent her response and made it public on January 16. The presentation of the questions to the minister had sparked controversy between her and the House committee on December 19, 2013, when she appeared before the lawmakers.

SHOCKER: Speaker Aminu Tambuwal Set To Formally Dumps PDP for APC

The negative fortune of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is set to dim even further as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal is set to formally decamp to the leading opposition party in the country, the All Progressives Congress, APC.

The Speaker’s decision came as a shock to the leadership of PDP, who earlier in December had extracted a word of commitment from the House leaders that member’s defection will no longer be tenable.

National Mirror gathered that the Sokoto State chapter of the APC has mandated its Tambuwal Local Government chapter to formally present a membership card to the Speaker who has been asked by the state Governor, Aliyu Wamakko to formally declare his stand.

It was gathered, however, that Tambuwal would retain his seat as Speaker due to the numerical strength of the opposition party as soon as he decamps from the PDP and join the APC in January.

It will be recalled that the defection of some members of the House of Representatives elected on the platform of the ruling party into APC has brought the number of the federal lawmakers of the opposition party to 172. The PDP presently has 171.

The likely defection of Tambuwal will further alter the equation in favour of APC in the House, with its membership increasing to 173, with PDP coming down to 170.

More PDP members in the House are also planning to join Tambuwal as soon as he declares for APC.

A source in Tambuwal's camp confirmed the move by saying:

"Mr. Speaker... is set to tap the numerical strength of APC in the House to retain his seat. The defection of Mr. Speaker is going to alter the political equation in the House substantially because many other members of the House are likely to join him to move to APC.