Reps shelve arrest of NIMC DG, await ADR in alleged contract breach

House of Representatives has put on hold its threat to order the arrest of the Director-General of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Mrs Bisoye Coker-Odusote, for failing to appear before it to answer charges on refusal to pay for a software development project executed by a private company, Truid Limited, for NIMC.

This followed the adoption of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in the matter. The House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions had invited Coker-Odusote, to appear before it to explain the commission’s failure to pay for the software development project executed by Truid Limited, a private company, for NIMC, but the NIMC DG failed to honour the committee’s invitation in person.

Recall that the committee’s Chairman, Mike Etaba, who was angered by the DG’s failure to appear before the committee to personally answer charges on the matter after repeated invitations, last month, issued a threat to order the Inspector General of Police to arrest the NIMC DG, if she refused to appear before the committee at its next hearing, which was fixed for March 13, 2025.

It was gathered that for over two weeks after the committee’s sitting on March 13, there were no indications that the NIMC DG would honour the committee’s invitation.

After its sitting on February 11, 2025, the committee threatened to order the arrest of the DG. In a statement by the Media Head, Public Petitions Committee of the House of Representatives, Chooks Oko, the chairman of the committee, had stated: “If she fails to show up at the next hearing of this case, we’ll have no option but to ask the Inspector-General of Police to bring her.”

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the project was deployed to the commission by Truid Limited, which had subsequently alleged a breach of agreement by NIMC.

The statement added that Truid Limited, which executed the software development project, was alleging a breach of licence agreement by NIMC, noting that counsel to Truid Limited, E. R. Opara, stated that the contract was premised on an arrangement, whereby the Truid Limited funded, developed and deployed the “tokenisation system project” without any financial obligation from NIMC.

According to Opara, the agreement was premised on an arrangement that the project would be funded by the firm. It explained: “Truid Ltd was to get returns on her investment through the patronage of service providers and the proceeds shared on an agreed ratio. This was to run for an initial period of 10 years from 2021 when the software was deployed,” Opara said.

According to the petition, things went smoothly until the arrival of the new NIMC DG, Mrs Coker-Odusote, who appeared not to be in favour of the agreement. When contacted yesterday by The Guardian to comment on whether or not the NIMC DG had personally appeared before the committee, Etaba said: “For now, that matter has been stepped down because it has been taken to an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) route. That’s where the matter is now. The committee is silent on (the matter) until they give us the report of the ADR. That is when we will know what to do next.”