A National Conference delegate, Mr. Femi Falana, SAN, has asked the National Assembly to reject the request made by President Goodluck Jonathan, asking for the Assembly’s approval for a $1bn loan to aid the war against the Islamic sects, Boko Haram.
Falana said the President must explain what he had been doing with the budgets made for defence in the past few years.
He said, “The request made by President
Jonathan for approval of the Senate for a loan of $1 bn to fight the
menace of the Boko Haram sect should be rejected in its entirety.
Between 2010 and 2013 over N3tn was budgeted for defence.
“Under the Appropriation Bill signed into
law on May 23 this year, 20 per cent of the entire federal budget i.e.
the sum of N968.127bn out of N4.962tn was earmarked for defence. The
Senate should find out what happened to the defence budget in the middle
of the year to warrant a supplementary budget of N160bn.”
Similarly, another Senior Advocate of
Nigeria, Yusuf Alli, said the request by the President had created a
state of uncertainty as he had yet to be fully aware of all the
parameters for the request.
He urged the National Assembly to be sure there was a need for it before approving it.
He said, “I am sure they should be sure
that there is a need for it before they will approve it. One does not
possess all the parameters for asking for the loan, so one is a bit in a
quandary. One does not have all the factors that have been considered.
“But one wants to believe that the National Assembly will be given all the facts to do the correct thing.”
A security consultant, Ben Okezia,
faulted the request by Jonathan, saying the Army already had a budget
which was being used to fund its counter-terrorism campaign in the
North-East.
According to him, the government should
not attempt to hoodwink Nigerians. He said the number of Boko Haram
insurgents were not up to 2000 and that not all of them were armed.
He therefore cautioned the National
Assembly against approving the loan request, saying the government was
not sending everyone in the Army to fight against Boko Haram and as such
there was no need for the loan.
Okezie said, “What does he (Jonathan)
want to buy with $1bn? Are they saying all the soldiers in the Army are
going to fight against Boko Haram? The money is for 2015 elections.”
They know that APC will match them money for money.
But the Coordinator of National
Information Centre, Mr. Mike Omeri, said the Federal Government would
not spare resources to bring back the schoolgirls abducted from the
Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, on April 14.
Omeri was responding to a question from a
journalist on whether the resources of the Federal Government had
depleted in the fight against terrorism such that it now needed to
borrow $1bn to prosecute the war.
The NUC coordinator said, “Even the
United States goes for this kind of facility. For any country involved
in such military expedition, not just the Boko Haram issue, but engaged
in a number of military exercises, its stock will deplete. Every country
must restock to reinforce its capability.
“That is not to say that the resource of
Nigeria has finished and therefore we needed to go for loan. It is not
cash that will be given to Nigeria. It is a long term facility.
“It is country-to-country kind of process
because what the government is looking for is the approval of the
National Assembly so that the President can negotiate for arms to
consolidate, to reinforce the stock the armed forces have and to
guarantee that we will win the war against insurgency and we have an
effective and capable assets to prosecute any unforeseen issue. This
happens to all countries. It is not exclusive to Nigeria.”
He added, “Once the country is engaged in
any kind of activity of this nature, it sure will lead to depletion of
resources. So, I don’t think the loan is because the resources are
depleted. For the amount so far spent, I am not in a position to say so.
“We are still prosecuting the war. So, it
will be preposterous to begin to calculate cost. Don’t forget, our
citizens have been abducted. And so whatever we need to do that we must
do to get our citizens back, we will do it. The country will do it.”
Jonathan had on Wednesday forwarded a
letter to the National Assembly, asking the lawmakers to urgently
approve a $1bn external loan for the Federal Government to confront the
Boko Haram insurgency
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