US President Donald Trump has said homeless people must “move out” of Washington DC as he vowed to tackle crime in the city, but the mayor pushed back against the White House likening the American capital to Baghdad in Iraq.

The Republican president has also trailed a news conference for Monday about his plan to make the city “safer and more beautiful than it ever was before”.

Trump signed an order last month making it easier to arrest homeless people, and he last week ordered federal law enforcement into the streets of Washington DC.

The specifics of the president’s plan are not yet clear, but in a 2022 speech he proposed moving homeless people to “high quality” tents on inexpensive land outside cities, while providing access to bathrooms and medical professionals.

The Association had through its President, Princewill Okorie, accused NELMCO of misappropriation of funds, shady operations, among sundry allegations. 

At the resumed public hearing on the matter on Thursday, the Chairman of the Committee, Dabo Ismail said the panel took the allegations seriously and immediately launched a comprehensive investigation to unmask what truly transpired.

According to the Bauchi lawmaker, NELMCO’s existence is backed by the provisions of the Nigerian Electricity Act, 2023, thus, dismissing the position of the petitioner that the agency ought to have folded up in 2017 after the privatisation of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria. 

Responding to the allegation that NELMCO spent ninety four million naira on a five-day retreat in Lagos, the Managing Director of NELMCO, Mojoyinoluwa Dekalu-Thomas expressed the readiness of the agency to provide evidence of the expenditure incurred in the course of the training.

The Committee urged the petitioner to feel free to come forward with other subsequent findings, promising that it would do justice to every petition submitted before it in the interest of Nigerians.