Reps Threaten Managing Director, Director-General With Arrest

The House of Representatives Committee on Nutrition and Food Security has threatened to issue a bench warrant for the arrest of the Managing Director of the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), Ayo Sontinrin, and the Director-General of the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN), Dr Abubakar Adamu Dabban, for failing to attend its meetings.

The committee’s chairman, Hon. Chike Okafor, issued the threat at the resumed investigative hearing on the alleged misuse of N1.2 Trillion agricultural interventions funding in Abuja on Tuesday.
The lawmaker warned that the warrant would be issued if they fail to appear at the committee’s investigative hearing.

He said: The Committee held the maiden Investigative Hearing on 8th April, 2025, with the Central Bank of Nigeria in attendance, led by Hamman, Kwali John, Acting Director of the Finance Development Department, among other notable invitees.

The 2nd Hearing held on 16th June, 2025, with the attendance of Central Bank of Nigeria and the Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs), is still indebted to CBN under the Anchor Borrower Programme.

Sterling Bank’s representative confirmed that the bank is free from any indebtedness, as acknowledged by the CBN through a letter to the Committee dated June 25, 2025, affirming Sterling Bank’s position that it has no outstanding debts.

“As the investigations went on, including forensic auditing and evaluation, a few organisations have proven their innocence by honouring the invitations of the Committee, appearing before the Hearings, opening up their books with detailed answers to our inquiries and going the extra mile to show verifiable evidence to support their claim of non-involvement in misuse of agricultural funding. Such organisations will be commended in the Committee’s Report to the House, at the end of the investigations”.

“On the other hand, the Committee wants to put it in the public Know, that series of letters and invitations sent out to the following: the Bank of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, National Agricultural Land Development Council to appear before at the last two Hearings of this Committee, were met with either no response or very flimsy excuses for non-attendance.

“This is totally unacceptable. The Bank of Agriculture only responded with the excuse of having a new Managing Director, and I wrote back to the MD to say that the bank is an ongoing concern; having a new MD is not a sufficient reason not to honour the invitation of this panel.

“I sincerely hope that the Bank of Agriculture and the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria will be present tomorrow because the public hearing continues tomorrow. We are not the police, but this is a quasi-judicial institution. If we don’t see them tomorrow, we would have to invoke all the powers of the parliament to make them appear before us”.

Meanwhile, the Committee has requested documents and correspondence between Prospect Micro-Finance Bank and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) regarding the disagreement over the amount allocated to the Bank, the status of N6 million recovered by the Bank from beneficiaries, and other related issues.

This followed a presentation before the Committee by the Managing Director (MD) of the Micro-Finance Bank, Mr Isaac Inwang, who informed the Committee that N14.6 million was given to the Bank, which was disbursed to 30 Poultry farmers, out of which N6 million was recovered and kept with the Bank awaiting further instructions from the CBN.

However, the Central Bank faulted the Bank’s claim, saying that N15.5 million was given to the Bank for disbursement.

A CBN Deputy Director, Hassan Tom, stated that the Micro-Finance Bank has breached the guidelines and extant laws, which direct that all recovered funds must be returned to the CBN within a specified period; however, the Bank held on to the recovered funds for more than three years.

The Committee Chairman, therefore, directed the Micro-Finance Bank to provide the requested documents on Wednesday, November 19, and prepare to address some salient issues observed in his submissions and the CBN’s response regarding breaches of the law and guidelines governing the disbursement of funds and recovery.