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The Minority Whip, House of Representatives, Samson Osagie, on Thursday gave reasons why opposition lawmakers walked out of plenary, following a stalled debate on the controversial $9.3 million arms deal, noting that Nigeria’s image was at stake.
Addressing the issue on Sunrise Daily, Osagie said “we have made several efforts to ensure that as law makers, as representatives of the people of this country, we have the opportunity to discuss it.
“The truth of the matter is that to be able to come to that conclusion, you must also follow what is also going on with respect to the matter in South Africa.”
Despite the explanation given by the executive arm of government concerning the purpose of the $9.3 million, Osagie argued that “it is still the opinion of the National Prosecuting Authority in South Africa that the explanations that have been given are be-riddled with discrepancies and hence the High Court there (SA), had to give an order to freeze the money and put them in a reserved bank”.
“If the reasons were acceptable as proffered by the Special Adviser on Media, to Mr President, I believe that with high level diplomatic talks, by now the matter ought to have been resolved.”
However, the lawmaker disclosed that the matter is still being investigated.
He further explained that there was nothing legitimate about Nigeria breaking South Africa’s laws.
“We are bothered as lawmakers, about the image of our country and how we are being perceived,” he said, making reference to the perception that Nigeria is a corrupt nation.
“This is one nation that is being said to be a very corrupt nation and with this type of incidence, our image in the international community, not even to talk of our African continent, will further dip low).
“We believe that the processes that have been followed, even in trying to attain the desire of government, to procure equipment for our people, did not take into cognizance – the need to protect our nation’s image, our pride and our sovereign status as a country.”
The House of Representatives session had gotten off to a rowdy start on Tuesday morning as APC lawmakers stormed out of plenary, after a stalled debate on the controversial $9.3m seized by the South African government.
Leading the disgruntled representatives, Osagie addressed the press, and described the botched transaction as “unacceptable, unethical, illegitimate” and questioned the source of the money and its original purpose.
Speaking on Thursday on Sunrise Daily, he noted that that was the opinion of the opposition. “We were merely expressing our opinion on the matter, which if we were permitted on the floor of the House, we would have had the opportunity to ventilate.”
We argued that they had a right to debate “issues of that nature” because “it is very important to our national image”.
Waste Of Legislative Time
The Majority Leader, House of Representatives, Leo Ogor, in his response to Osagie, described the suggested debate on the matter as a waste of legislative time. According to him, there was no need to investigate the issue since the Senate was already doing the same.
“This subject matter came in as a matter of national urgent importance” he said, noting that based on the House rules, the issue was listed the next day”, however, “for reasons best known to the mover of the motion, didn’t take it. He left the matter for about three days”.
By the time the mover of the motion raised the issue, the Senate had started to probe the issue.
“So we felt, this investigation is already on-going. What is the point? Let’s wait till the Senate finish their own investigation because it is a little bit un-parliamentary for us to be investigating what the Senate is investigating, at the same time.
“We said: well, this investigation is totally unnecessary at this particular time. Whatever the Senate comes out with, since it is the same National Assembly, we can take a look at it, because it is the same issue of the $9.3 million dollars that was being discussed.”
Asked why this decision was reached, since the House of Reps had been known to carry out investigations on issues already being probed into by the Senate (for example; fuel subsidy), Ogor said:
“Before this decision was taken, we actually went into what we call an Executive Session and there were some high class revelations” concerning the purchase of arms, which led them to embark on some level of legislative diplomacy.
The Speaker of the lower chamber, Aminu Tambuwal was then asked to relate with the Speaker of the House of Reps, in the United States, “as it borders on the Lehi Law that has created some level of bottleneck for us in rest of arm purchases”.
It was also disclosed that in light of the fact that arms from America and parts of Europe were yet to be delivered, “our government, probably through an intermediary, decided to take some alternative”.
“I don’t think we would want to oppose such an arrangement, no matter how you want to look at it”, he insisted, making reference to the activities of Boko Haram insurgents in the North East.
“For me, whatever we need to do to resolve this so called unacceptable insurgents or terrorists, ravaging our land, it is very very important that we must do all we can, within our responsibility to support the government.”
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