The Rivers State House of Assembly has ordered the arrest of PAMO University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Smith I. Jaja, over failure to appear before a committee investigating billions of naira in scholarship funds and called for the recovery of all unaccounted money.
The order was made during Friday’s plenary, presided over by Speaker Martin Amaewhule, following the consideration of a report by the Ad Hoc Committee investigating the disbursement of scholarship funds to PAMO University since 2017.
The committee, chaired by the Deputy Speaker, Dumle Maol, had invited the Vice-Chancellor to appear before it but he failed to honour the invitation.
The House had last week extended the deadline for his appearance to September 24.
Following the committee’s recommendation, the lawmakers resolved to issue a warrant of arrest for the Vice-Chancellor to compel his appearance before the committee.
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The House also urged the state government to establish a committee to recover all unaccounted funds in the possession of PAMO University and return the money to the state’s Consolidated Revenue Account.
The development followed concerns over the management of scholarship funds running into several billions of naira allocated to the university by the state government.
The House had earlier removed N6 billion allocated to PAMO University from the state’s 2026 budget of N1.84 trillion before presenting the budget to the governor for assent on September 3.
PAMO University of Medical Sciences is owned by former Rivers Governor Peter Odili, who also serves as its Pro-Chancellor.
Special Assistant on Media to the Speaker, Martins Wachukwu, made the development known in a statement on Friday.
Punch NewspaperÂ
