The Senate president of Nigeria, Ahmed Lawan, has cried out about the state of the country.
According to him, Nigeria is very poor and we have no option but to borrow in order to fund infrastructure.
He made this shocking revelation when he visited the Presidential Villa, Abuja, where he met President Muhammadu Buhari behind closed doors.
Fielding questions from newsmen after the meeting, Lawan, however, assured that the legislature would “not be frivolous” in granting executive requests for loans.
He said such requests would be subjected to thorough scrutiny by the parliament before approval, to ensure the use of the loan is monitored via an oversight arrangement.
The lawmaker further indicated that there were other outstanding issues requiring the attention of the parliament including the need to consider the President’s request for a loan before the Assembly proceeds on its summer break.
“We also have the loan request from Mr. President. The request is to fund the 2021 Appropriation Act and, of course, this is not a new request. It’s something that we had passed in the MTEF and it’s something that when we passed the 2021 budget, we also passed that.
“So, it’s only to give the necessary legislative approval for the administration to go further and collect the funds.” he said
He said: “Whenever we have to approve any loan, we have to insist on the details of what projects will be funded by those loans. We’ll have to look at the conditions that are attached to the loans. They must be favourable conditions before we approve and we will be up to date with our oversight, to ensure that what we have approved is directly deployed and on those projects that we have also approved for implementation.”
Reacting to his comments, Nigerian singer, Rugged Man took to social media and wrote, “Maybe Nigeria is poor, but Nigerias politicians are VERY rich”
One Onyx Godwin wrote, “Lol. A poor country is paying you 65m monthly? Are we fools?”
Wenddy Adanma wrote, “And you people keep stealing? Keep hoarding money yet we borrow?”
Another social media user wrote, “So what are you doing with the borrowed money ?”
Tobilola wrote, “Y’all made the country poor. To borrow so you have more to loot 💰 clowns 🤡”
Issabela Ibeji wrote, “How about recovered funds? Reducing Your salaries? Unnecessary spending”
One Kunta Kinte wrote, “And after borrowing, you all will then loot and leave the country in more debts than you met it. Soon china will need their money back and if you all cant pay back, they will convert our full country to shaolin temple”
A Sir Elte wrote, “It’s apparent that this administration doesn’t know what they are doing. No plan, no strategies to improve the economy. All they do is borrow and embezzle the money.”
