Members of the Senate were on Friday divided over the recent approval of $1bn by President Muhammadu Buhari to purchase military equipment to fight Boko Haram.
The senators, who spoke to Saturday PUNCH in separate interviews, were divided on whether the President would need the approval of the National Assembly before releasing the money or not.
Members of both chambers of the National Assembly had in December differed over the matter when the National Economic Council approved the withdrawal of $1bn from the Excess Crude Account to fight Boko Haram.
But on Friday, there appeared to be a conspiracy of silence in the House of Representatives on the matter.
The Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Abdulrazak Namdas, was also unable to tell Saturday PUNCH the position of the House.
In the Senate, there were indications that the $1bn security fund would polarise the chamber along political party lines.
The Vice Chairman, Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce, (Peoples Democratic Party, Bayelsa State) stated that the executive must seek legislative approval before spending the money.
Murray-Bruce, while speaking to one of our correspondents on Friday, stated that it would be illegal to spend such money without approval.
He said, “They cannot spend it unless we appropriate it. They have to bring it to us. They must be talking about the proposal, they cannot spend it. We will appropriate it while they will recommend it.
“I assume that whoever made the statement on behalf of the Federal Government must have failed to say that they would bring it for us to approve it.”
The Chief Whip, Senator Sola Adeyeye, who is also the leader of the South-West APC Caucus, however, said the President might not require legislative approval to release the money, depending on which Federal Government’s purse it would be taken from.
He said, “I don’t know. It may be that there is an existing provision for the purpose. It could also be from borrowed funds, but I am sure that the executive cannot be reckless with borrowed funds. Otherwise, the money will be wasted and the future generations will pay part of the debt.”
Adeyeye, however, refused to speak on whether it was justifiable for the government to have approved the spending of $1bn on military equipment.
“I will rather not comment on that, for the sake of my party,” he said.
It’s inhuman to oppose it –Ndume
Senator Ali Ndume, one of the sponsors of the North-East Development Commission Bill, which had been signed into law by Buhari, condemned critics of the President’s move, describing its opposition as inhuman.
Speaking particularly about the PDP, Ndume recalled that the previous government, led by President Goodluck Jonathan, spent $2.1bn without recourse to the National Assembly for approval.
According to him, the $1bn is still not enough to address the security challenges in the North-East and other parts of the country.
Ndume said, “Anybody that is opposed to this is opposed to humanity. It is inhuman. We in the North-East, particularly in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, are not going to be given the money; it is to fight an insurgency that is threatening the security of this country. I feel very bad because the position of those shouting now is inhuman. I wish they were the ones facing this problem and we had the peace that they are enjoying.
“When the PDP was in government, Jonathan singlehandedly disbursed $2.1bn in the name of fighting insurgency at the peak of electioneering (2014/2015), which this government is now trying to retrieve from the various people who sat at the National Security Adviser’s office and shared it.
“Where were these PDP people who knew that there was a National Assembly that had to approve that money but did not talk about it? It is very inhuman and unfortunate that these same people can come out now and criticise the approval of $1bn to purchase military equipment.”
Ndume pointed out that Buhari would seek National Assembly’s approval for the expenditure.
He said, “Who says the President is not going to write the National Assembly? This money we are talking about, it is from the Excess Crude Account. When the governors, then under the PDP, were sharing the money in the days of Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and Jonathan, did they come to the National Assembly? It was right then. Is it now that it is wrong?”
Speaking in his capacity as the PDP senator representing Bayelsa-East, Murray-Bruce, in a post on his Facebook, argued that arms and ammunition to be bought with the money would not end Boko Haram insurgency.
The post read, “On this $1bn, we must understand that Boko Haram isn’t just a terror group. More importantly, it is an ideology. The phrase itself means that ‘Western education is a sin.’ You can’t fight an ideology with guns and bullets alone. It is like fighting a spirit with physical weapons.”
Also, Senator Shehu Sani, on his Facebook page, criticised the empowerment of the military without similar consideration for the police and other security agencies.
He said, “If we use $1bn to upgrade our military arsenal to the 21st century (level) while leaving behind our police in the 20th century and other security agencies in the 19th century, we will be dancing with the python and sleeping with the cobra, viper, mamba and anaconda.”
The PUNCH had exclusively reported earlier in December 2017 that several members of the Senate were against the decision by the Federal Government to withdraw $1bn from the ECA to finance the security sector.
However, Namdas (Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs) did not tell Saturday PUNCH the position of the House.
Namdas, after repeated calls, assured one of our correspondents that he would find out the official position and revert, but he never did.
“Give me some time, I will get back,” the spokesman kept saying.
Another member, Mr. Mohammed Sani-Abdu, simply told Saturday PUNCH that he had nothing to say about the issue because he was on holiday.
“I am on holiday and not in town. When I am back, I will do some catching up and then I can comment,” he said.
However, findings showed on Friday that the House had yet to take a formal stance on whether the government should withdraw the money or seek the approval of the National Assembly first.
In December 2017, soon after the National Economic Council approved the withdrawal of the $1bn from their share of the ECA, the House had debated the matter but was unable to arrive at a position.
This was because its members were divided on the issue, with some saying Buhari could go ahead, while others opposed him.
The House, presided over by the Speaker, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, later stepped down the motion.
It’ll be mismanaged unless there is monitoring –HURIWA
But a civil society organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, warned that the $1bn might be mismanaged without proper monitoring.
It said that there should be adequate checks from the legislature and civil societies to monitor the disbursement, procurements and deployment of the arms.
The HURIWA National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, stated this in a statement on Friday, noting that the President must follow the due process by “obtaining the legislative appropriation of such huge fund.”
Onwubiko said there was an alleged procurement scandal presently in the Federal Ministry of Defence regarding the United Nations Peacekeeping contract fund, adding that the two chambers of the National Assembly must execute their power of appropriation on the fund in line with Section 88 of the constitution.
The statement partly read, “We urge the National Assembly and civil society organisations to keep an open eye on the distribution of the $1bn security fund. The Ministry of Defence has a record of lack of respect for the provisions of the Procurement Act which is a law of the Federation of Nigeria.”
Buhari will seek N’ Assembly’s approval –Aide
Meanwhile, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media, Garba Shehu, on Friday, said the approval by the President was not final.
Shehu, in an interview on ‘Sunrise Daily,’ a Channels TV programme, said a draft bill would be sent to the National Assembly for approval.
He stated, “The process has begun. It is not concluded, therefore, everyone will be involved. Mr. President will not breach the constitution of this country. Approval at that level is granted, there is nothing controversial.
“The attorney-general will bring a draft bill to the FEC (Federal Executive Council). The President will approve and then say take it to the National Assembly. The draft budget before it got to the National Assembly, the FEC signed and approved it.
“People will say when you’ve defeated Boko Haram, what do you need funds for. But if you check around, all over the world, the countries do most spending in peacetime.
“There are the police and there is also the military. It’s going to touch on every aspect of security in the country. We are not talking about buying footwear or uniforms, which is routine. We’ll re-equip the military that has depleted much of its stock fighting criminality, insurgency and terrorism across the country.”
Okowa, Fayose, SPN oppose approval
Meanwhile, Governors Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State and Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, and an opposition party, the Socialist Party of Nigeria, have opposed the President’s move.
Okowa said being a loyal member of the PDP; he was in support of the decision of his party to oppose the release of the money.
“Our party (PDP) has made it clear as to why the funds should not be released and we are in tandem with the party’s decision,” a statement by the governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Charles Aniagwu, said.
Fayose, on his part, queried the approval by the President, saying it was a ploy by the ruling party to raise funds for Buhari’s re-election as well as the forthcoming governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states.
In a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, the governor was quoted as saying, “It will be illegal and against the principle of federalism that operates in Nigeria for the President, who is the head of just one of the federating units, to approve the spending of funds belonging to the three tiers of government without the consent of the heads of other federating units.”
While the governors of Cross River State, Prof. Ben Ayade, and Mr. Darius Ishaku of Taraba State, declined to comment on the matter, the Ebonyi State Government lent its support to the President’s move.
The Chief Press Secretary to Governor David Umahi, Emmanuel Uzor, told our correspondent in a telephone interview on Friday that since the fund was meant to tackle insecurity in the country, the state was behind the move.
But the SPN said there was no wisdom in spending such an amount on procuring military equipment and arms, noting that the government should rather prioritise investing more resources in the welfare of the people and for massive job creation to guarantee social security.
A statement by the party’s National Secretary, Chinedu Bosah, partly read, “We do not see the wisdom in spending $1bn on military equipment and arms, an amount that is more than the combined 2017 capital budget for education (N50bn), water resources (N85bn), Universal Basic Education (N92bn), and health (N51bn) and in a country wherein 70 per cent of its populace are living below poverty line.
“This $1bn could end up as another Dasukigate considering the fact that defence expenditure lacks transparency and accountability because it is undemocratically treated as a classified item which gives room for looting. We, therefore, strongly suspect that Buhari’s government wants to deploy this security fund as the war chest of the APC for 2019 general elections as former President Jonathan and the PDP allegedly did in 2015.”