The confirmation of the appointment of the immediate past Service Chiefs as ambassadors by the Senate despite opposition and the planned restructure of estimated $25.6 billion overdrafts with the monetary authority into a 30-year debt by the Nigerian government are some of the trending stories in the Nigerian newspapers on Wednesday.
The Guardian reports that the Senate, yesterday, confirmed the appointment of the immediate past service chiefs as ambassadors.
The appointees are former Chief of Defence Staff, Gabriel Olonisakin; former Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai; former Chief of Air Staff, Ibok Ibas; and former Chief of Naval Staff, Abubakar Sadique.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Adamu Bulkachuwa, while presenting the committee’s report, said the committee screened the nominees carefully and thoroughly and was satisfied with their qualifications, character and general performance.
He added that the ex-military top brass displayed in-depth knowledge of international military diplomacy ,and urged the Senate to confirm them
But a petition urging the Senate to throw the nominations out because of the Senate’s past votes of no confidence in the ex-service chiefs over their failure to contain terrorism, banditry and kidnapping was ignored by the Upper Chamber.
Senate Minority leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, had shortly after the report of the Foreign Affairs committee, which screened the nominees, drawn attention to a petition, which asked the Senate to protect its integrity by sustaining its no confidence vote.
Abaribe noted that, having established thrice in the past that these former service chiefs were grossly incompetent in performance of their last assignments, the Senate would do a great disservice to its integrity if it cleared the nominees.
The newspaper says that the Nigerian Government has disregarded the Central Bank of Nigeria Act (2007) as it moves to restructure its estimated $25.6 billion (an equivalent of N9.7 trillion) overdrafts with the monetary authority into a 30-year debt.
The amount, which sources said is unverifiable and could have been discounted following the high level of secrecy around the processes leading to the loans, consists of the existing short-term advances granted by the apex bank.
The government may have, by the facility restructuring, heeded the warning by International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Fitch that the mounting overdrafts were responsible for the accelerating inflation, which hit 16.47 percent in January.
Like its procurement process, the planned loan liquidation faces major legal hurdles, among which is the CBN Act 2007 that spells out how advances extended to government should be treated as well as repayment processes.
Section 38 of the Act stipulates that the apex bank “may grant temporary advances to the Federal Government in respect of temporary deficiency of budget revenue.” It, however, restricts the amount to five percent of the previous “year’s actual revenue of the Federal Government.”
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