MANY Nigerians have taken a swipe at Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari for approving N37 billion Naira for the renovation of the National Legislative Assembly.
Senate President of the 9th Assembly, Ahmad Lawan had told journalists on Monday that the president had given his approval.
Lawan was quoted to have said that “We met the president and (it was) related the condition of the complex, the president responded and said he was going to renovate the complex the phase one renovation will commence – the chambers and committee rooms in the white house N37 billion was sourced and was given”.
Justifying the need for the allocation, Lawan said ‘there has been no major renovation of the National Assembly building for 20 years and many parts of the property had become dilapidated’.
The Senate President added that the fund was allocated from the Federal Capital Territory and not the National Assembly.
Reacting to the development, Nigerians took to Twitter with over 22,000 tweets to criticize the need for the renovation of the building.
One of the many messages with pictures of bad road, poorly equipped hospital and classroom captioned with “Who we offend for this country” [who did we offend in this country].
He tweeted;
Who we offend for this country.#37billion to renovate NASS.. Who do us like this. pic.twitter.com/qsN2tutGrT
— Tori_Jäger 🍁 (@majorwayz89) December 18, 2019
In a Twitter message, one King Marvel in disapproval of the fund wrote that the approval was compensation to the National Assembly for approving Buhari’s loan $30 billion request.
He alleged that approving N37 billion Naira for the renovation of a building built with N7 billion in 1992 is ‘pure corruption’
He tweeted:
Approving #37billion for renovation of National Assembly that was built with 7billion is pure corruption. This madness must stop. @MBuhari is openly giving kick backs to the Senate for Approving his ridiculous loans. pic.twitter.com/YsXQaGpdPd
— king Marvel (@marvelnsa) December 18, 2019
Another user Tife wrote in challenge of the approval, questioning how such amount would be approved for assembly renovation when the National budget only allocated 7 per cent to the education sector.
Tife, further questioning the act wrote that ‘N37 billion for a country in several debts’?
https://twitter.com/Tife_fabunmi/status/1207248667285045248?s=20
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via [email protected], on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94