The bribery scandal-rocked investigation into the collapse of the Nigerian Capital Market by the House of Representatives Committee on Capital Market and other institutions yesterday took another dimension as the chairman of the committee, Hon. Herman Hembe,? announced his resignation as head of the committee and the disqualification of the committee and other members to continue the probe.
The development came just as? the leadership of the House has accepted the resignation of Hembe and his committee members and? raised an eight- man ad-hoc committee headed by Hon Ibrahim Tukur El-Sudi (Taraba State), to take over the probe de novo (afresh).
The Director –General of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ms.? Arunma Oteh, had alleged that Hembe demanded N44 million bribe from SEC to facilitate for the public hearing on the capital market.
Announcing his resignation after a long meeting with the leadership of the House before commencement of plenary, Hembe said, “I want to be on record that I demanded no bribes and took no bribes. Rather,? I fought hard and rebuffed efforts to be inappropriately influenced.”
Affirming his innocence of the allegations against him, Hembe said while brandishing a copy of an internal memo allegedly obtained from SEC that contrary to Oteh’s claims,? it was the SEC that approached the committee with a request to co-sponsor the hearing with N30million.
The memo dated? March 1, 2012, showed the offer came from SEC and it was signed by Hassan Mamman and addressed to the DG from SS (CA).
In a related development, the Senate yesterday warned that it would never shirk its statutory and legislation oversight functions and vowed to press on with probes of ministries, agencies and departments.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Publicity, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, stated this yesterday after the Senate plenary while reacting to the development at lower house.
