There was chaos in the House of Representatives on Wednesday over a bill seeking to increase ways and means cash advances from five percent to 10 percent.
Opposition parties staged a walkout during plenary after an amendment by Kingsley Chinda, the minority leader, proposing to reduce the ways and means to two percent was rejected.
The existing law stipulates that the advance by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) must not exceed five percent of the previous year’s revenue of the federal government.
Chinda introduced the amendment during the consideration of the report on the bill at the Committee of the Whole, arguing that this change would enhance transparency in federal government spending.
The report proposed raising the ways and means advances from the current five percent to 15 percent.
James Faleke, chairman of the Committee on Finance, opposed Chinda’s amendment, urging the House not to go below the five percent stipulated in the act.
Ibrahim Isiaka, a lawmaker from Ogun State, supported Faleke’s position, proposing an increase from five percent to 10 percent.
Idris Wase, a former deputy speaker, then moved a motion to maintain the 10 percent.
When Benjamin Kalu, the deputy speaker and presiding officer, called for a voice vote on Wase’s amendment motion, the “nays” were louder than the “ayes,” yet he ruled in favor of the “ayes.”
This decision provoked the lawmakers, who expressed their dissent with a chorus of “no.”
At this point, opposition lawmakers led by Chinda walked out of plenary.
Subsequently, the report was adopted and passed for third reading.Â
THE WAYS AND MEANS
Ways and means is a loan facility through which the CBN finances the federal government’s budget shortfalls.
The CBN law limits advances under ways and means to five percent of the previous year’s revenue, but this has often been breached over the years.
On May 23, 2023, the Senate approved a sum of N22.7 trillion in ways and means loans, thereby securitizing the debt following a request by former President Muhammadu Buhari on December 28, 2022, asking lawmakers to do so.
In January 2023, former President Muhammadu Buhari informed the Senate that it would cost the federal government about N1.8 trillion in interest if the National Assembly failed to approve the N22.7 trillion in extra-budgetary spending.
One year later, Godwin Emefiele, the former governor of the CBN, was implicated in a “fraud” case involving the apex bank’s loan on December 22, 2023.
A report by a panel investigating the CBN and related entities—led by Jim Obazee, a special investigator—indicated that Emefiele and former finance minister Zainab Ahmed had jointly signed a statement advising Buhari to restructure the ways and means of N23.71 trillion, despite presenting “a different figure to the National Assembly on the same date.”
