Jonathan gets Senate’s nod to take $1bn loan

Jonathan had on July 17, 2014 asked the National Assembly to approve request to borrow the money but the matter was not attended to as lawmakers proceeded on their annual recess a day after.The upper chamber had last week mandated its joint committee on Finance, Foreign and Local Debts led by Senator Ahmed Makarfi (PDP, […]

Jonathan had on July 17, 2014 asked the National Assembly to approve request to borrow the money but the matter was not attended to as lawmakers proceeded on their annual recess a day after.
The upper chamber had last week mandated its joint committee on Finance, Foreign and Local Debts led by Senator Ahmed Makarfi (PDP, Kaduna) to process the request.
Makarfi had on Wednesday said “the loan facility request is not a cash loan but supply of military hardware to be paid for over seven years.”
He said the hardware to be procured include helicopters, ships, armaments and hardware equipment adding that, “no new helicopter had been added to the fleet since 1998.”
The committee recommended that the Senate approves the loan as requested by the president.
Shortly after Makarfi finished his presentation, Senator James Manager (PDP, Delta) urged his colleagues to expressly approve the request and not subject it to further debates since it is a “security issue”.
Supporting Manager, Senate President David Mark appealed to the lawmakers to approve the request arguing that unless “it is very absolutely necessary we should go ahead to approve without raising any issues of implications.”
However, this didn’t go down well with most opposition senators who moved to filibuster the passage.
Senator Adetunbi Olubunmi cited provisions of sections 81(4) and 83 of the 1999 and the Fiscal Responsibility Act especially sections 42 and 44 respectively as it relates to procedures of external borrowing which he argued have not been complied with by the president.
But Senator Makarfi quickly countered him saying that all issues raised by Adetunbi were not relevant to the issues they were considering.
At this juncture, Senate Minority Leader George Akume (APC, Benue) intervened arguing that the constitution supersedes any law and should be held supreme.
However, the Senate President disagreed with Akume arguing that “merely” quoting the constitution does not make Senator Adetunbi’s position right as, according to him, “the facts are very different”.
At this stage, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu cautioned the APC senators against presenting themselves as people who are not in support of the fight against Boko Haram.
This also did not help matters as Senator Babafemi Ojudu (APC, Ekiti) countered Ekweremadu. According to him, “it imputed wrong motive” against them in the opposition.
Mark, apparently angered by the opposition’s attempts to delay the passage, quickly put the question as to whether the request would be approved or not and the “yes” had it.
The opposition Senators were not happy with the outcome of the vote and kept shouting “nay” which threw the chamber into rowdy session for more than five minutes.
Senators Smart Adeyemi (PDP, Kogi) and Kabiru Marafa (APC, Zamfara) were seen shouting at each other which prolonged the bedlam before normalcy returned to the red chamber.
The loan request will however  have to be approved by the House of Representatives as provided by the constitution. The House is yet to act on it.
Meanwhile, the Senate yesterday approved the appointment of Justice Chima Centus Nweze as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.