have said the National
Assembly should not only reject President Goodluck Jonathan’s $1bn loan
request to fight Boko Haram.They also believed that the lawmakers should not only throw away the request, but should go further by probing various security allocations that the FG had voted in recent times for the military.
This is the outcome of PUNCH ONLINE EXTRA’s poll, with the question, ‘What do you think the National Assembly should do about President Goodluck Jonathan’s $1bn loan request to fight Boko Haram?’
It opened for voting on July 23, 2014 and ended on August 3, 2014, attracting 1,166 respondents. .
Jonathan had, on July 16, 2014, sent a letter to the Senate and the House of Representatives, seeking their approval to borrow the said amount, which is equivalent to about N165bn.
The letter, which was read at the upper chamber by the Senate President, David Mark, said the President wanted the huge sum in order to upgrade the equipment of the Armed Forces.
Five hundred and forty nine respondents, representing 47 per cent, believed the lawmakers should reject the request.
For 356 of the respondents, representing 31 per cent, they are of the opinion that the issue is not just about accepting or rejecting the request, but about probing the several allocations which the military has received in recent times.
This probably means that if the president at this time is requesting for such an amount, then the management of the budgetary votes for security votes in the past should be investigated.
Two hundred and sixty one respondents, representing 22 per cent, believed the federal lawmakers should approve the request, ostensibly believing that such a step would help to curb the rampaging Boko Haram.
The 47 per cent and 31 per cent, who advocated that the request should be rejected and security allocations probed respectively, appeared to have aligned with the opinion of renowned legal practitioner and the human rights activists, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN).
Falana had said, “The request made by President Jonathan for approval of the Senate for a loan of $1bn to fight the menace of the Boko Haram sect should be rejected in its entirety.
“Between 2010 and 2013 over N3tn was budgeted for defence.
“Under the Appropriation Bill signed into law on May 23 this year, 20 per cent of the entire federal budget i.e. the sum of N968.127bn out of N4.962tn was earmarked for defence.
“The Senate should find out what happened to the defence budget in the middle of the year to warrant a supplementary budget of N160bn.”
