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The ministers of
defence and finance, Adetokunbo Kayode and Olusegun Aganga, are among
top government officials expected to be questioned this week by the
House of Representatives over the spending and status of Nigeria’s
accruals from United Nations Peacekeeping operations.

The two ministers
were earlier billed to address the House committee on defence last week
on how the funds earned by Nigeria from years of foreign peace missions
in Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Lebanon, and Sudan were applied.

Mr. Aganga was also ordered to appear before the lawmakers’ plenary over poor funding of federal capital budget.

Both meetings were suspended and no excuse officially given.

The chairman of the
House defence committee, Oluwole Oke, said the ministers, amongst
several other summoned public officials, will be expected to tell the
lawmakers “what they know about the funds”, said to be in billions of
dollars.

In the past, the
disbursements of funds to security personnel who took part in Nigeria’s
several United Nations-backed peace missions, have stirred controversy,
with mostly junior officers complaining of being short-changed.

Twenty eight
soldiers, who represented the Nigerian mission in several conflict
areas, were court-martialed and jailed for life in 2009, after staging
an open protest in 2008 about the non-payment of their entitlements.

The House committee
is to review the allocations from the UN made to Nigeria since 2007,
and how the monies were used and where they were lodged.

Mr. Oke confirmed that the meeting with the ministers and others will now hold on Tuesday.

Also to appear are the group managing director of Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Austin Oniwon; the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) governor, Lamido Sanusi; the managing director of Unity
Bank Plc, Falalu Bello; the director general of the Budget Office and
Accountant General of the Federation, Ibrahim Dankwabo.