The purported Director-General of the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, Adeniyi Adeyemi, has rejected plans by the House of Representatives ad hoc committee to question him at an undisclosed location while he remains in police custody, insisting that any appearance before lawmakers should take place in a public hearing.

In a statement issued on Wednesday through his lawyer, Ademola Oyedokun, Adeyemi said he welcomed the House investigation into the alleged establishment and operations of the PFIPC but opposed the committee’s decision to interrogate him behind closed doors.

Oyedokun maintained that, in the interest of fairness, his client should be given the opportunity to publicly respond to allegations already made against him during the committee’s open proceedings.

“We have read that the committee intends to interview our client at an undisclosed date and place. We ask it, respectfully, to think again.

“Everyone else in this matter has been heard in public, and what has been said about our client was said in public. He should be allowed to answer in the same place it was said,” the statement read.

He urged the committee to invoke its constitutional powers under Section 89 of the Constitution to compel the police to produce Adeyemi before it at a public hearing.

“Section 89 of the Constitution gives the committee the power to summon any person and compel his attendance.

“We ask it to use that power and to require the police to produce our client at a public sitting.

“He will attend on any date it names, with his counsel, and answer every question put to him,” he said.

Oyedokun said the criminal allegations against Adeyemi would be determined by the Federal High Court and the appropriate investigative agencies, but maintained that the House of Representatives’ inquiry into the establishment of the PFIPC and the role of government officials in its operations should be conducted in the open.

“Our client does not ask the committee to compromise any investigation. He will answer in public the questions this committee was constituted to ask, and will reserve, upon legal advice, any question touching a matter before a court or an agency.

“Those may be taken separately and in private. What cannot be right is that the whole of his account be taken behind a closed door because part of it is sensitive.

“We will not argue our client’s case in a press statement. The allegations are before the Federal High Court and before several agencies, and they will be answered there, on oath.

“But this committee is asking a different question: how this council came to exist, and who in government acted upon it.

“That question our client is anxious to answer, and Nigerians are entitled to hear it answered in public. We ask only that they remember, meanwhile, that no court has yet heard him say a single word,” he said.

He also questioned the legality of Adeyemi’s continued detention, arguing that the bench warrant relied upon by the police only authorised his arrest and appearance before the Federal High Court, and did not empower the authorities to keep him in prolonged custody.

“No order committing him to custody has ever been made, served on him or shown to him, and none could have been made, because he has never been brought before any court,” he said.