By KINGSLEY OKOYE

Mr. Bayo Ojulari, the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) on Tuesday, failed to appear before the Senate Committee on Public Accounts for the fourth time to respond to the audit query raised against the company.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ojulari’s non-appearance on a fourth invitation infuriated all the members of the Committee chaired by Sen. Aliyu Wadada.

The committee threatened to sanction the GCEO should he refuse to appear before the panel on Wednesday by 3 p.m.

NAN reports that the committee had earlier sent three invitations to Ojulari to appear before it to explain the N210 trillion unaccounted expenditure, as raised in the 2017 to 2023 audit report of the Auditor-General for the Federation against the company.

However, at the resumed hearing on Tuesday, when the committee chairman enquired from the Clerk, Mohammed Abdullahi, if the GCEO was around, he responded that he sent a letter explaining his absence.

Ojulari, in the letter dated July 22 and read by the Committee’s clerk, claimed that the urgent invitation from President Bola Tinubu at about 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday prevented him from honouring the committee’s invitation.

Members of the committee, in their separate comments, expressed reservations on the genuineness of the reason given by the GCEO.

One of the committee members, Sen. Victor Umeh, said that even though a presidential call had reduced his anger against the NNPCL boss, he however, said that using Mr. President as an excuse for failing to appear before the committee should not be allowed to continue.

Sen. Joel Thomas Onowakpo, in his own comment, accused Ojulari of not taking the invitation of the committee as a priority.

“To me, the NNPCL boss thinks that he is bigger than this committee, and we don’t need a soothsayer to tell us that he will never honour our invitation except we invoke our powers to compel him,” he said.

Also, Sen. Aminu Abbas said the NNPCL boss failed to understand that no GCEO was bigger than the National Assembly.

“For failing to honour the invitations of this committee four different times, he should be ordered to appear before the committee tomorrow (Wednesday) unfailingly,” he said. (NAN)