Buhari, Lawan hold critical meeting before medical trip to London

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), met behind closed doors with Senate President, Ahmad Lawan and the Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, at the State House, Abuja.

Addressing State House reporters at the end of the meeting, Lawan disclosed that they deliberated on key national issues which include the issue of supplementary budget intended to offer for the finance of the COVID-19 inoculation.

President Buhari receives Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan during a meeting at the State House Abuja

The Senate President declared that the supplementary budget would also provide for the logistics and well-being needs of the country’s security agencies to allow them efficiently address insecurity challenges across the nation.

He said, “We have come to meet with Mr President, to discuss issues of serious national concern. And one of those issues is the issue of the supplementary budget.

“Both executive and legislative arms believe that we should have a supplementary budget to provide for funding of the COVID-19 vaccination in Nigeria, as well as the security, providing more resources and platforms to our security agencies.”

On COVID-19 shots, the Senate President emphasised the necessity for Nigerian scientists to partner with other scientists worldwide to develop an efficient COVID-19 vaccine locally.

Lawan added that the National Assembly is ready to support such scientific ideas to improve local manufacturing of vaccines in the nation.

He further said that local production of the vaccines had become vital given the decisions of some vaccine producing nations not to supply their commodities to other nations for reasons best known to them.

He said, “As for the COVID, I believe that our country, Nigeria should have some resources for our scientists to collaborate with other scientists from across the globe, to also have our own vaccine.

“Because we can’t rely on what other countries are doing now, every nation to itself, that’s what is happening.”

On security challenges, the Senate President guaranteed that the National Assembly would keep on approving funds meant to provide more advanced equipment and devices for security agencies to address insurgency and other crimes in the nation.

Lawan said, “We’re expecting some APCs from China. And we believe that we’ve not had enough, we still need to approve more resources for the purchase of weapons for our armed forces, because this is the number one priority of government or any government really, to secure the people, and of course later the welfare.

“So we believe that we will be doing the right thing, if there is a request through supplementary appropriation bill from the presidency or executive arm of government, we’ll look at it and approve.”

At the same time, Gbajabiamila, who handled questions on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), disclosed that the National Assembly was focused on endorsing the bill by the end of April.

He said, “We made a commitment to the Nigerian people and that commitment is April, end of April.

“But let me just add that, you know, give or take two-three weeks, as he said, may only… because at the time the commitment was made, we didn’t take into cognizance the fact of Easter break and Ramadan is coming up as well.

“We’re still shooting for going for the end of April. But we’re not going to straitjacket ourselves into a particular date, when I say end of April, we are talking thereabout, it maybe a week after maybe two weeks after at most, our best.”