The lower chamber of the national Assembly on Thursday threw out the request by the presidency to purchase a presidential yacht in the sum of N5bn.
The news of the budgetary proposal in the suplimmentary budget presented to the National Assembly had sparked outrage on Wednesday.
Rather than approve the N5bn earlier requested for the purchase of the yacht, the lawmakers added its N5bn to the N5.5bn earlier earmarked for the students loan promised by the President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
The decision was taken on Thursday and announced on the floor of the lower chamber by the Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation, Hon Abubakar Bichi.
By the action of the House, the students loan budget proposal adds up to N10.5bn out of the N2.17trillion which was approved by the lawmakers on Thursday. The decision by the House came the same day an aide to the President, Temitope Ajayi said the yacht in question is a military hardware which was requested by the Navy.
He wrote in an article widely circulated on Thursday, “The trending issues on social media since yesterday are two items in the 2023 supplementary budget. One is the provision for a presidential yacht in the supplementary budget by the Navy and the other is over N6 billion for vehicles to the State House.
“It is important to state clearly that President Bola Tinubu didn’t ask for a presidential yacht and I doubt he needs one to perform the functions of his office. From what I know, the request for a yacht, however it is named or couched in the budget is from the Navy and they must have operational reasons for why it is required.”