The Nigerian Senate has threatened to issue an arrest warrant for Professor Nenibarini Zabbey, the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) Project Coordinator, if he does not show up for the Senate’s Public Accounts Committee meeting on Tuesday, February 4, 2025.
The Senate issued this warning after revealing in November 2023 that $360 million had been made available for the Niger Delta’s soiled Ogoniland cleanup.
In an interview with reporters in Abuja, Senate Committee on Public Accounts Chairman Senator Aliyu Wadada Ahmed bemoaned Professor Zabbey’s continued disregard for the committee’s invitations.
“The Senate Public Accounts Committee initiated an investigation into HYPREP’s operations under the Federal Ministry of Environment regarding the Ogoniland cleanup, by its constitutional and legislative powers to ensure value for money, based on the good governance principles of transparency, efficiency, effectiveness, economy, and accountability,” said Senator Wadada.
“The project coordinator has consistently failed to honour legislative invitations despite multiple invitations, submitting late rescheduling requests and declining to attend meetings for the seventh consecutive time today,” he said.
The committee is looking for explanations on several topics, such as the coordinator’s reasons for declining Senate invitations, information on the project’s appropriations and intervention funding, total federal funds received and how they were used in the budget for 2022, and an explanation of the extra N6.6 billion allotted for unreported hazardous sites in 2023, proof that taxes were paid between 2022 and 2024, and the cleanup effort in Ogoniland as of right now.
Senator Wadada issued a warning, saying, “For the sake of liberality, the committee decides to give the project coordinator until February 4, 2025, to appear before it without fail, or risk activating relevant provisions of the 1999 Constitution to compel his appearance.”
He listed the prior dates—December 18, 2023; January 15, 2024; January 28, 2024; February 28, 2024; March 5, 2024; May 22, 2024; and January 28, 2025—when the coordinator was not present.
To guarantee that the money is used properly for environmental rehabilitation, the committee emphasised that responsibility and openness in the Ogoniland cleaning are crucial.
