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‘Buhari repaying Obasanjo, Yar’adua, Jonathan’s loans,’ says Senate committee

September 23, 2021 No Comments

The Chairman Senate Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, on Wednesday blamed past governments for Nigeria’s debt burden.

Adeola, who addressed his colleagues before the passage of the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), said the criticism of President Muhammadu Buhari’s government for plunging Nigeria into debt was unfair and uninformed.

According to him, the large chunk of Nigeria’s total debt profile estimated at N33 trillion was incurred by past administrations dating back to the military era.

The lawmaker stressed that the majority of the loans being repaid by the Buhari administration were accumulated during the military era and ex-Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, and Goodluck Jonathan administrations between 1999 and 2015.

When asked by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, to make clarifications on issues raised by lawmakers, particularly on Nigeria’s debt profile Adeola said: “The accumulated borrowing you are talking about did not come from this administration alone.

It is a borrowing that stems from the days of the military to the days when the democratic dispensation started.

“It is an accumulated loan. It is not a loan that says that it is the current administration of President Buhari that has borrowed.

“It is a loan that has been borrowed by the previous administration – the Obasanjo, the Jonathan, the Yar’Adua of this world.

“And since the business of government is a continuum, the President of the day has no choice but to continue to pay back all these loans that have been borrowed by the previous administrations.

“More than three-quarters of these loans you are seeing were borrowed from the previous administrations and we are paying back. We are doing what is supposed to be done, the way it is supposed to be done.

“So, when my colleagues said that for every N67 of any loan that was borrowed, we are using to pay, he should know that more than N60 of it are loans borrowed by the previous administration. That is where we are.”

Politics

Trial of Jonathan’s former aide, Okupe adjourned to April 26

March 6, 2021 No Comments

The money laundering trial of former senior special assistant on public affairs to Ex-President Goodluck Jonath, Doyin Okupe, before Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court Abuja has been adjourned till April 26 and 27, 2021 for continuation of trial

At the resumed trial on Friday, March 5, 2021, counsel to the first defendant, G.K Gadzama, SAN, led in evidence, the fifth defence witness, Ehimare Edokwa Harold, an Assistant Manager at the Murtala Muhammed Airport Branch of Zenith Bank Nigeria limited, Lagos.

The witness told the Court that he was mandated to appear and present the mandate card and statement of account of Romiox Soiffix International Limited, following a subpoena on his bank.

Our bank was served with a subpoena and I was asked by the bank to represent the bank. I was asked to present a mandate card and a statement of account of Romiox Soiffix international ltd,” he said.

The witness further told the Court that he authored the document on behalf of the bank, the “Certificate of compliance too is here and certified by me; I am with the bank for 13years, the statement covered from inception to date and it covered forty four pages.”

But prosecution counsel, Ibrahim Audu objected to the tendering of the documents, arguing that it was not certified by the bank.

“We are just having the privilege of looking at this documents and we are objecting to these documents because it has not been certified by the bank which it is claimed to have come from. This documents have not been certified by the bank, and that is our objection. But if my lord is minded about certifying the document, it is okay.”

However, Gadzama urge the Court to accept the documents in evidence, describing them as primary documents.

Justice Ojukwu admitted the documents, marked as exhibit Q and R, and adjourned the matter till 26 and 27 April, 2021 for continuation of trial.

The EFCC is prosecuting Okupe alongside his two companies: Value Trust Investments and Abrahams Telecoms on a 59-count charge bordering on money laundering and criminal diversion of funds to the tune of N702 million.

Politics

Don’t allow people deceive you into running for 2023 presidency, MASSOB warns Jonathan, Tinubu

February 4, 2021 No Comments

The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), has sent a strong warning to former President Goodluck Jonathan and former Lagos State Governor and National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, not to contemplate running in the 2023 presidential election.

MASSOB was reacting to speculations that some governors of the APC in the North have been putting pressure on Jonathan to decamp to the APC and contest on their ticket while a group in the South-West loyal to Tinubu called ‘The South-West Agenda (SWAGA),’ has been putting pressure on the former Governor to throw his hat into the race.

In a statement on Wednesday signed by MASSOB National Leader, Uchenna Madu, the group also warned Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, to bury his interest as not doing so will be “a dangerous systematic way of creating and re-establishing another political discord among the people of the old eastern region.”

MASSOB added that instead of running for the presidency in 2023, Jonathan, Tinubu and Bello should rather bury their ambitions and work towards ensuring that a South-Easterner gets the Presidency.

Madu called on all the political parties to ensure that their presidential ticket is given to “credible South Easterners to ensure equity, justice and fairness in the Nigeria project.”

The statement reads:

“Former President Goodluck Jonathan and his Ijaw kinsmen should be wise enough to discern this subtle and hypocritical move of Arewa governors.

“The Sultan of Sokoto, the Aso villa cabals, the frontline emirs, the Arewa opinion leaders and Islamic gurus, both Nigerians and foreigners, are perfectly aware and systematically pushing for a Goodluck Jonathan one tenure administration.

“Their ultimate political aim is to sideline and frustrate the golden chances of Igbo man or South-East zone to emerge as president of Nigeria.

“MASSOB also warns Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi state to bury their presidential ambitions in 2023 because it is solely and sacrosanct for the South-East zone to produce the next president of Nigeria.

“It is not about sentiment or selfishness to support the South-East zone; it is the turn of the South-East zone to produce the next president of Nigeria according to the zoning arrangement.

“Nigeria is already sitting on an explosive time bomb that will eventually explode in 2023 if justice and national integration are not done to the people of South-East in producing the next president of Nigeria.

“The Hausa-Fulani are seriously plotting to scuttle and frustrate the South-East zone’s chances to produce the next president of Nigeria.”