President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the National Assembly requesting for the addition of the purchase of Super Tucano mlitary aircraft and other warfare equipment from the United States Government as supplementary input to the 2018 Appropriation Bill.
Reading the communication from the President addressed to the House of Representatives at its plenary session on Tuesday, 24th April 2018, the Speaker, Rt Hon Yakubu Dogara (APC: Bauchi) drew attention to the ongoing security emergencies in the country disclosing that the said challenges had been discussed with State Governors. According to the letter, the President had met with State governors before holding a subsequent meeting with the National Economic Council (NEC) on 14th December 2017 that approved of $1 Billion from the Excess Crude Account to address security challenges.
Following this, the President disclosed that he was preparing a comprehensive schedule, itemizing the breakdown of the entire military requirement that it sought to purchase for presentation to the National Assembly. He also recalled Nigeria’s prior discussions with the United States Government for the purchase of the Super Tucano military aircraft for a number of years, under a direct country to-country arrangement before mentioning that the United States Government had finally granted it, with a caveat for part payment failing which the contract would elapse.
In addition, President Buhari explained that in anticipation, he had granted approval for the release of $496,374,470.00 (equivalent to N151, 394,421,335.00) that has been paid into the United States government treasury in expectation that the National Assembly would have no objection to the purchase of this highly specialized aircraft that was critical to national security, The President also sought the approval of the said sum to be included in the 2018 Appropriation Bill which it was is currently finalizing as part of a supplementary input before promising that the balance sum for critical operational equipment would be presented in the form of a supplementary appropriation bill after a breakdown was collated from the different security services in due course.
However, the President’s letter was not well received by some lawmakers as Hon. O.K Chinda (PDP: Rivers) raised a point of order drawing the attention of the House of the President’s breach of Section 80 of the Constitution, which requires Assembly’s approval before appropriation. He also accused the President for committing an impeachable offence before calling for his impeachment process to begin.
Nonetheless, Hon. Oker Jev (APC: Benue) dissented with Hon. O.K Chinda’s position stating that his argument could only be be properly considered at second reading stage in accordance with the Rules of the House since the President’s request for supplementary input to the 2018 Appropriation Bill had only come up for first reading. This argument was accepted by the Speaker who voted in favour of the House Rules.
