By Paul Effiong, Abuja
House of Representatives Committee on Polytechnics and Other Higher Technical Education has expressed readiness to sanction five Federal Polytechnics for their refusal to honour its invitation to render budget performances.
Chairman of the Committee, Hon Fuad Kayode Laguda disclosed this while speaking after another failed meeting of the Committee earlier planned to hold at Natiomal Assembly, yesterday.
Laguda, said the Five polytechnics: are the Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Imo State; Federal Polytechnic Ohodo, Enugu State; Federal Polytechnic Oko, Anambra State; Federal Polytechnic Akanu Ibiam, Ebonyi State and the Federal Polytechnic Isouchi, Abia State adding that they have all failed to honour the invitation given to them and was slated to take place yesterday.
He further lamented; “This is the first time that we are having such regrettably action from any Polytechnic in Nigeria. We’ve overtime covered schools both physically and we’ve also visited National Assemblies, North West, South West, North Central, North East. It’s surprising that schools from the South East bluntly refused to honour the invite of the National Assembly.
The lawmaker cited some relevant section of the law such as Section 89 and 129 which he said empowers the National Assembly to “investigate, procure evidence; require the evidence to be given on oath; summon anyone to give evidence or produce documents; and issue a warrant to compel the attendance of any such witness”.
It would be recalled that, the Committee had recently visited some Federal Polytechnics and met others at the National Assembly due to some genuine reasons that prevented the Committee from visiting their campuses.
It was gathered that the Committee had last week met with some Federal Polytechnics while they were not able to visit others due to security reasons around their location.
