Senate in disagreement over Buhari’s N23.7tn loan request

The Senate is now engaged in a heated debate over the president’s request to authorize a N23.7 trillion reorganization of the Ways and Means Advances, which was made by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Ahmad Lawan, the president of the Senate, and Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the House of Representatives, read out Buhari’s plea to the members of their respective houses at the session on Wednesday.

In the request titled, ‘Restructuring of Ways and Means Advances,’ the President wrote, “The Ways and Means Advance by the Central Bank of Nigeria to the Federal Government has been a funding option to the Federal Government to cater for short-term or emergency finance to fund delayed government expected cash receipt of fiscal deficit.

“The Ways and Means balance as of 19th December 2022, is N23,719,703,774,306.90.

“I have approved the securitisation of the Ways and Means balances along the following terms: amount, N23.7tn; tenure, 40 years; moratorium on principal repayment, three years; pricing interest rate, nine per cent.”

Drama broke out at the plenary, though, when Senator Betty Apiafi, the senator from Rivers West, stood up to oppose the new borrowings and the Senate President yelled at her to stop. Senator Solomon Adeola, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, was reporting the committee’s findings on the Ways and Means at the time.

Events took another dimension as senators began to shout, standing up and shouting with aggression.

Different lawmakers such as Senator Smart Adeyemi (APC, Kogi West), and George Sekibo (PDP Rivers) raised a motion in support of Apiafi that the Senate President had no power to shout down a senator while speaking.

As the tension kept increasing at the plenary, Lawan quickly called for a closed-door session.