The House of Representatives Committee on Public Assets on Tuesday directed security forces to arrest an alleged unlicensed auctioneer and Director of Quality Control at the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) over the sale of two helicopters for $1.2 million.
The committee directed the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to take over the probe into the suspected indiscriminate sale of two NCAT helicopters.
The Committee on Public Assets issued its decision after approximately five hours of consultation with the College’s management and other relevant entities.
The Chairman of the Commitee, Ademorin Kuye, worried that the two choppers bought at $2.4 million were sold at $1.2 million without due process.
“We requested for list of assets including comprehensive description and specifications of all your list assets, rented apartments including acquisition dates and methods and the current status and conditions of such assets. We can not say specifically that you have satisfied all of these requests. Though you tried to answer some of them, your response are not adequate,” Kuye said.
Kuye and his colleagues also queried the use of an unlicensed auctioneer who failed to provide needed response to enquiries.
In his reaction, the Coordinator Nigerian Army Aviation, Musa Alkali, said that the request by Army to make use of the helicopters in the fight against terrorism was turned down. He demanded that the two helicopters should be recovered.
A member of the committee, Midala Balami, said that the document presented to the commitee were false documents.
Last December, the House launched an investigation into the state of public assets in the country.
The committees mandate is to recover assets valued at trillions of naira and moribund public assets within and outside Nigeria and to unravel reasons behind the hurried sale of two helicopters without the approval of the Federal Executive Council days to the end of the Muhammadu Buhari administration in 2023.