*Rights lawyer asks court to stop Buhari, Senate President from approving $800 W’Bank loan
*Says no available data to determine low-income earners in Nigeria
Gbenga Sodeinde in Ado Ekiti and Wale Igbintade in Lagos
The founder, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, (ABUAD), Chief Afe Babalola, has advised the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, to first seek debt forgiveness for Nigeria when he assumes office on May 29th, 2023, for the country to move forward.
This was just as Human rights lawyer, Mr. Abdulganeey Imran has asked a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, to stop the federal government from seeking additional loan of $800,000,000 or any other sum at all, to finance the National Social Safety Network Program, (NASSP).
Specifically, Babalola said the best thing he would expect the in-coming president to do was to learn from former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who spent two to three years of his administration going round the world to beg for debt forgiveness for the nation.
The lawyer/educationist gave the advice at the weekend, while answering questions from newsmen at the end of a lecture titled: “Smart Infrastructure: Catalyst for Sustainable Development,” held at the Alfa Belgore Hall of the university by Prof. Bamidele Adebisi, of the University of Manchester.
The elder statesman insisted that no investor would be willing to invest in a country where they cannot even repay their debts and not to talk of the interest owed.
“Have you ever heard of a man who would be stupid enough to go and invest in a bankrupt country?
“The president- elect should learn from Former President Olusegun Obasanjo who spent his first two years in office to be going around to seek for debt forgiveness,” the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) said.
The ABUAD founder who frowned at Nigeria’s high debt profile said, “we owed trillions of dollars and we are still borrowing more even as the present administration has few days to go.
“We learnt that the in-coming president went to look for those who will invest here,” he said, stressing that we the country’s weak currency, there was need to, “seek for debt forgiveness first before any other thing.”
The Chancellor, said smart Infrastructure depends on availability of necessary infrastructure itself, which ABUAD was doing already.
He said: “The purpose of the lecture is to change, promote and revolutionalise the society which we are doing here.”
Babalola, charged Nigerian professors on the need for quality research, saying if a research is solid and marketable, a lot of industries would seek to acquire them.
“The issues raised in their journals will be marketable. You can make millions and billions from it,” he added.
Adebisi, whose lecture was on smart infrastructure, said technology has come to stay.
“We can use technology as a tool for societal development,” he added.
$800m Loan: Rights Lawyer Asks Court to Stop Buhari, Senate President
Meanwhile, Imran has asked a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos to stop the federal government from seeking the $800 million World Bank loan.
In the alternative, the applicant prayed the court to restrain the president from sharing, distributing, tampering with or dealing with any such loan of $800 million granted to the respondents in any manner whatsoever.
President Muhammadu Buhari had sought approval of the House of Representatives for a fresh $800 million loan to finance the NSSNP.
The request was contained in letters to the Senate and House of Representatives.
In the letter, dated May 2, 2023, and addressed to Femi Gbajabiamila, the president had told lawmakers that the programme was intended to expand coverage of shock responsive safety net support among poor and vulnerable Nigerians.
But, the applicant in suit number FHC/L/C5/908/23 brought pursuant to Order 3 Rule 9 of the Federal High Court Civil Procedure Rules 2009, and Section 59, 80, 81, 135 of the constitution, urged the court to restrain the 1st respondent (president) from seeking additional loan of $800 million or any other sum at all, to finance the NSSNP, which was purportedly meant to be shared and transferred at the rate of N5,000 per month to 10.2 million Poor and low-income households.
Aside the president, other respondents in the suit were the Attorney General of Federation (2nd Respondent) and Minister of Justice, and Senate President 3rd Respondent).
The applicant also urged the court to direct the respondents to remit the said sum of $800 million back to the federation account of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and for such further or other order as the court may deem fit to make in the circumstance.
The applicant premised his request on the grounds that the tenure of the present administration seeking to obtain ‘this whopping sum of money’ comes to an end on the 29 day of May, 2023, which simply means that, “he has less than nine working days to the end of its administration and is therefore absolutely impossible for any serious minded administration, especially the 3rd Respondent (Senate President) to commence the process of obtaining such loan, scrutinise the term and conditions, get it approved, sent it back to the President, who shall in turn present it to the borrower all within ten days.”
The Applicant stated that there was no state of emergency or circumstance of extreme urgency that necessitates and justify the hurriedness in processing and obtaining the $800 million, and “there is nothing in the letter of request sent by the President to the Senate President that suggest any urgency in the purpose for which the purported loan is being sought.”
He further stated that going by precedent, it takes the 2nd Respondent, several weeks of painstaking scrutiny, debates, assessments and deliberations on any request that involves request for loans of any magnitude from the executive before such request is determined one way or the other.
He further stated that the federal government lacks statutory power to borrow the sum of $800 million to finance and or subsidise consumption.
He argued that there was no available statistic/data to determine and or identify the poor and low-income earners in Nigeria as “the similar exercise in the past generated serious controversy, submitting that majority of Nigerians believe that the funds were diverted by the officials for personal gains rather than using same for the purpose for which it was meant.”
The suit was assigned to Justice Peter Lifu, but no date was fixed for hearing.
