The decision was made in response to Col. Milland Dikio’s and his team’s unwillingness to accept the invitation of the Committee on Public Accounts, chaired by Senator Matthew Urhoghide (Edo South).

A source claims that the committee requested the PAP temporary administrator and his team to come before the panel in response to a concern raised about the program in the Auditor-General of the Federation’s 2018 report.

It was revealed that the PAP officials were billed to appear on February 3, having been sent a letter dated January 25.

They were said to have been invited in another letter, dated May 19, 2022, to appear on June 16  but failed to appear before the panel.

It was reported by Vanguard that the officials were invited for the third time in a letter dated June 28 to appear in July but again failed to appear.

Speaking about the PAP officials’ recurrent unwillingness to appear before the panel, Urhoghide questioned why representatives of a government organization who appeared before the National Assembly to obtain appropriation permission would fail to appear before the same National Assembly to account for how the money was spent.

He claimed that the committee’s only choice was to seek an arrest warrant for PAP’s accounting officers.

He said: “They have consistently refused to appear before the committee, which is very unfortunate.

“We will issue a warrant of arrest on the accounting officer of the PAP. We have been left with no other option than to issue a warrant of arrest on the accounting officer of PAP..”

The query against the PAP officials read in part: “Audit observed that the sum of N324,969,190.00 was paid to some members of staff vide six payment vouchers for hosting ex-agitators, 150 leaders of ex-agitators, and logistics for various training, etc in 2015 financial year.

“However, these vouchers and attached supporting documents revealed that the payments were made into a single person’s accounts on behalf of other beneficiaries, in contravention of the aforementioned provisions.”