Akpabio challenges senators for not interrogating Tinubu’s Independence Day broadcast

The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, on Wednesday, expressed surprise that senators failed to mention or challenge certain aspects of President Bola Tinubu’s Independence Day nationwide broadcast to the nation.

During plenary on Wednesday, Mr Akpabio said he expected the lawmakers to raise important issues relating to the Senate as contained in the president’s broadcast to mark Nigeria’s 64th independence anniversary.

According to him, there was a very important issue that concerned the upper chamber in the broadcast that needed to be addressed but the senators overlooked it and kept quiet.

The senate president neither mentioned the issue nor allowed the senators to respond to his comment as he quickly directed the senators to proceed to a closed-door session.

“I think it’s important that we congratulate the president on the 64th Independence of the country and also congratulate ourselves and the 10th Senate and National Assembly as a whole.

“But I was also waiting for any of the senators to note the broadcast of Mr. President, but nobody has noted it. So there was a very important item in that broadcast that concerned the Nigerian Senate. But since nobody has noted it, I invite you to second the motion for a closed session.”

In the broadcast, President Tinubu said, among other things, that he had cleared the N30 trillion Ways and Means debt obtained by former President Muhammadu Buhari.

He also said he would soon transmit a bill seeking to reduce the tax burden on businesses and Nigerian workers.

Ways and Means is a loan facility through which the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) finances the federal government’s budget shortfalls.

The Buhari administration obtained N30 trillion under the Ways and Means from the CBN.

The Senate in February passed a resolution to probe the loan, particularly how such a huge amount of funds was approved, the method of disbursement and its usage.

The upper chamber also constituted an ad hoc committee chaired by Isah Jibrin, the senator for Kogi East, to interrogate the disbursement.

Mr Akpabio had claimed at different fora that the Ways and Means debt is a major factor that caused the harsh economy and increased hardship in the country.

But in the broadcast on Tuesday, President Tinubu said his administration had cleared the N30 trillion Ways and Means debt, an amount higher than the approved 2024 budget.

The National Assembly passed an N28.7 trillion budget for the 2024 fiscal year without provision for the ways and means of debt.

The claim has generated heated debate among economists and analysts, raising concerns about how the government sourced the fund since it was not included in the budget, nor was the payment approved by the National Assembly.

On tax burden, President Tinubu only said he would soon transmit a bill seeking to reduce the tax burden on workers and businesses established in the country would soon be transmitted to the National Assembly for legislation.