President Muhammadu Buhari’s $22,bn external loan request to fund critical infrastructure projects under the 2016 – 2018 external borrowing plan has b
President Muhammadu Buhari’s $22,bn external loan request to fund critical infrastructure projects under the 2016 – 2018 external borrowing plan has been approved but the process of the loan request by Senators however led to vehement disagreements in the upper chamber.
While some Senators supported the approval, others kicked against it. Efforts were made by Senator Adamu Aliero of Kebbi Central to postpone the consideration of the report to another legislative day. However, the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, said that such a postponement would be counterproductive as the findings and recommendations of the report would have already been debated in the media before the consideration. He advised that the report be considered to forestall such an eventuality.
As Lawan moved to subject the two recommendations in the report to vote and approval, the Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe raised a point of order. Abaribe said that it would be necessary to subject the various components of the loan to voting, especially the amounts and the lending countries. Lawan disagreed with him and said that the Senate would only vote on the two recommendations contained in the report.
Senator Gabriel Suswam also said that he had some objections and information on an aspect of the loan that relates to power projects in the report which he did not want to raise in the open chamber. He urged the Senate President to allow the Senate to go into an executive session for 10 minutes to resolve the issues.
Even though Lawan earlier kicked against the suggestion for the Senate to go into an executive session, he later accepted it following apparent interventions by Senators. The Senate after the closed door session, which lasted for about 30 minutes, approved the two recommendations in the report.
