A Civil Rights Advocacy group Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has described as unconstitutional, Senate’s approval of President Muhammadu Buhari’s request to borrow $22.7 billion despite objection from some Senators.
The group stated this in a statement endorsed by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf.
The Rights group alleged that the foreign loans offends several provisions of the Nigerian constitution, including sections 16(1); (2) of the Nigerian constitution, which opposes excessive borrowings that makes Nigeria a slave of external jurisdictions and impedes our national drive for self reliance.
Specifically, section 16-(1) provides thus: “The State shall, within the context of the ideals and objectives for which provisions are made in this Constitution.
(a) harness the resources of the nation and promote national prosperity and an efficient, a dynamic and self-reliant economy;
(b) control the national economy in such manner as to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and equality of status and opportunity;
(c) without prejudice to its right to operate or participate in areas of the economy, other than the major sectors of the economy, manage and operate the major sectors of the economy;
(d) without prejudice to the right of any person to participate in areas of the economy within the major sector of the economy, protect the right of every citizen to engange in any economic actitivies outside the major sectors of the economy.
(2) The State shall direct its policy towards ensuring:
(a) the promotion of a planned and balanced economic development;
(b) that the material resources of the nation are harnessed and distributed as best as possible to serve the common good;
(c) that the economic system is not operated in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of a group; and
(d) that suitable and adequate shelter, suitable and adequate food, reasonable national minimum living wage, old age care and pensions, and unemployment, sick benefits and welfare of the disabled are provided for all citizens.
HURIWA posited that President Buhari’s constant borrow from conceivable creditors from around the world, was tantamount to converting Nigeria to a beggarly economy, which is against these constitutional provisions.
“We all know that when Nigeria had an activist National Assembly headed by Senator Bukola Saraki, this move by President Muhammadu Buhari to mortgage Nigeria into the enslavement of the Chinese creditor was rejected.
‘Then in 2019 the President who worked tirelessly to destabilize the then National Assembly using primitive force of arm had sent the loan request to the senate but was rejected by the Upper Legislative Chamber under the leadership of Bukola Saraki.
“However, we have been informed now that during today’s plenary, being 5th March 2020, despite the fact that the Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe cautioned against considering all recommendations on the loan request at once, the Senate under Ahmed Lawan, accepted hook-line and sinker this toxic loan request by the President, which will effectively return Nigeria to the in glorious infamy of belonging to the notoriously disreputable class of heavily indebted nation, which we had exited during Obasanjo administration, through Dr Mrs Ngozi Okonjo Iweala.
“As Finance minister, she got the London and Paris clubs of creditors to write off Nigeria’s nearly $30 billion accumulated loans for the payment of a one-off $15 billion. Now the current administration has brought us right back to the status of a heavily indebted nation.
HURIWA applauded Senator Abaribe who stated that the Senate should consider the recommendations “item by item”.
“Nigeria has from this moment become a slave except HURIWA and all other concerned Nigerians can use the courts of law to try to save Nigeria from the imminent enslavement.
“We call on good spirited individuals to support this advocacy to use the court system to stop the government from proceeding to obtain these toxic loans,” the group stated.
