The Senate plenary on Wednesday turned rowdy after the house received a request by the President Muhammadu Buhari to approve the sum of N23.7 trillion for Ways and Means Advances restructuring.
The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, both read out to the request to members of the respective chambers.
President Buhari’s request which was titled, ‘Restructuring of Ways and Means Advances,’ noted that “The Ways and Means Advance by the Central Bank of Nigeria to the Federal Government has been a funding option to the Federal Government to cater for short-term or emergency finance to fund delayed government expected cash receipt of fiscal deficit.
According to the request, “The Ways and Means balance as of 19th December 2022, is N23,719,703,774,306.90.
“I have approved the securitisation of the Ways and Means balances along the following terms: amount, N23.7tn; tenure, 40 years; moratorium on principal repayment, three years; pricing interest rate, nine per cent.”
Things turned rowdy when the chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Solomon Adeola, was reporting the committee’s finding on the Ways and Means when the lawmaker representing Rivers West, Senator Betty Apiafi, stood up to counter the new borrowings , and the Senate President shouted her down.
Lawan’s action however did not go well with some senators who began to shout, standing up and shouting in anger.
Some lawmakers including Senator Smart Adeyemi (APC, Kogi West), and George Sekibo (PDP Rivers) raised a motion in support of Apiafi that the Senate President had no power to shout down a senator while speaking.
The rising tension made the Senate president to immediately call for a closed-door session.