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It was a rancorous session yesterday in the Senate as the lawmakers engaged in heated arguments on the $29.96 billion loan request made by President Muhammadu Buhari for infrastructural development.
Although approval of $22.7billion was eventually given to the request, the unity among the senators was weakened.
It was a straight disagreement between those opposed to automatic approval of the loan and those who wanted a thorough debate on every item of the request.
Senate President Ahmad Lawan, the Minority Leader, Eyinaya Abaribe, and the Majority Leader, Abdullahi Yahaya were locked in very bitter altercations regarding the procedure to be adopted.
It was learned that at the closed-door session, the debate took party coloration. And when the door was opened, the leadership of the minority, including Abaribe, was conspicuously absent. It was later learned that they left the chamber at the end of the closed-door session.
The contentious issue was that while Lawan preferred that the matter is treated by voting according to the recommendations in the report by the Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, many senators wanted all issues raised in the loan request considered and debated in detail to allow Nigerians the opportunity to know why the loan was being approved.
The Senate had commenced deliberations on the external borrowing as requested by President Buhari when Adamu Aliero came under Order 43 to say the report was big and voluminous and, therefore, it would not be fair for the chamber to just receive it and act on it without studying it.
“By then, we will be in an informed position to treat it and do justice to it whereby Nigerians would know that we are serious in dealing with the weighty issue.”
But Lawan appealed to his colleagues for the report to be debated, saying the media would feast on it if they allow it to be put off till next Tuesday when the report would have leaked to the press.
“I believe that we have to weigh it whether we are prepared to delay it, but I agree with your point. The only consolation I have from where I sit is that we have a committee that helped us in putting these things together.
“I believe that we trust our committee on what they have done. I want to believe that where we have issues, we can raise the issues. But the risk we have is that if we don’t consider it, this thing will just go out and it will be out of our hands.”
Later, the Majority Leader, Abdulahi Yahaya, also suggested that the report be considered part by part to avail the senators full knowledge of every line item and details of the bill.
Again, Lawan insisted that the consideration would be done as a whole and a voice vote would be put for senators to vote.
Hence, the decision to discuss behind closed doors was preceded by back and forth arguments between the other lawmakers and Lawan which lasted for over half an hour.
After minutes of silence and consultations, Yahaya moved that the Senate go into a closed-door session for further deliberations. It was adopted.
When the lawmakers resumed, they seemed to have got their acts together as they approved the $22.7billion loan request.
Aliero, who also spoke on the lopsidedness of the projects covered by the loan, asked whether Nigeria was borrowing the money to construct the roads from Lagos to Abidjan.
“Are we so generous to consider this up to Abidjan? Secondly, the East-West road is a very good project and I support fully the inclusion of this project in the borrowing plan.
“If you look at other parts of the country, nothing is said about the North East. The application of this loan is lopsided and I want to say that other geo-political zones should also be considered.
“We have dilapidated roads all over the country. I don’t see why a huge amount of money like this will be concentrated in only one section of the country. When we come to the clause, we should include critical parts that should be covered on this loan.”
Full Story: [GuardianNG]
