NASS: APC chieftain tackles SERAP’s position on N110bn bulletproof cars, palliative

From Sola Ojo, Kaduna

A chieftain of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Jibril Tafida, has described the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP)’s 7-day ultimatum to the National Assembly on the planned spending of N110billion on cars and palliative as “treacherous unfairness”.

SERAP had issued the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives a seven-day ultimatum to drop what it termed a scandalous plan to spend N40 billion on 465 exotic and bulletproof cars for members and principal officials, and N70 billion as palliative for new members.

Tafida in a statement Sunday night said SERAP’s threat, as a “hitherto exceptionally respected governance watchdog is most unfortunate and devastating to those desirous of the best obtainable security and comfort for the federal parliamentarians who are the de facto producers of democratic governance and prosperity”.

Tafida further expressed dismay over the stand of SERAP that the parliamentarians don’t deserve such a class of security devices and basic comforts, arguing that the security situation in the Country calls for such vehicles.

“In a country that over the last decade showed instances of parliamentarians being kidnapped and ransom paid for their release. Such a situation would unsettle the operators of the engine room of democratic governance for the discharge of their duties and responsibilities as required by the law”, he said.

“If the lawmakers are completely exposed to the enduring storms of insecurity in the Country, it would imply that over 200 million Nigerians are completely insecure”, he argued.

Tafida noted that foreign investors would be convincingly scared if the status quo is upheld, adding that “they would say, only a mad investor would want to waste his money in a country where even top echelon of governance can be kidnapped or killed as hawk feast on chicks”.

The APC stalwart said it was “most devastating to note that SERAP could not spew bile, or chose not to do so for whatever reasons, over the hundreds of billions of Naira drained on the entire education sector with a pathetically incommensurate development to show

“The ultimatum, therefore, only exposes SERAP’s treacherous unfairness against Nigeria’s federal parliament and, indeed, Nigerian democracy, as if it is doing a hatchet job”, he said.