The Senate is currently in a rowdy session on the request of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (ret.), to approve the restructuring of Ways and Means Advances to the tune of N23.7 trillion.
In Wednesday’s plenary session, Senate President Ahmad Lawan and House Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila read Buhari’s request to members of the respective houses.
In the request titled “Restructuring Ways and Means Advances”, the President wrote: “The ways and means advance from the Central Bank of Nigeria to the Federal Government has been a funding option for the Federal Government to cater in the short term or Emergency financing to finance the delay in the receipt of cash provided by the government for the fiscal deficit.
“The balance of means and taxes as of December 19, 2022 is N23,719,703,774,306.90.
“I have approved the securitization of the balances of Ways and Means in the following terms: amount, N23.7tn; tenure, 40 years; moratorium on principal payment, three years; price interest rate, nine percent.”
However, drama ensued in plenary session when the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Solomon Adeola, was reporting on the committee’s conclusions on the ways and means when the lawmaker representing Rivers West, Senator Betty Apiafi, stood up to counter the new loans. and the president of the Senate shouted it.
The events took on another dimension when the senators began to shout, standing up and shouting aggressively.
Different legislators like Senator Smart Adeyemi (APC, Kogi West) and George Sekibo (PDP Rivers) filed a motion in support of Apiafi that the President of the Senate had no power to yell at a senator while speaking.
As tension in the plenary session mounted, Lawan quickly called a closed-door session.
