Contractors demand N875m for National Assembly vehicles

President Muhammadu Buhari has been petitioned by a group of contractors to prevail on the National Assembly to pay them for the officials cars bought for lawmakers since 2017.

Numbering 12, the contractors demand the payment of N875m with 21 per cent interest within 7 days, fail of which they would sue the leadership of the National Assembly.

In the petition, they revealed that the vehicles, which were bought by members of the 8th National Assembly, especially the House of Representatives, included Peugeot 508, 2017 model and Toyota Hilux pick-up vans.

They specified that the 8th Assembly was led by Bukola Saraki  as the President of the Senate and Yakubu Dogara as the Speaker of the House.

Now, the 9th Assembly is being led by Ahmed Lawan as President of the Senate and Femi Gbajabiamila as Speaker of the House.

They stated that while the 8th House bought Peugeot 508 2017 model, the 9th House ordered 400 units of Toyota Camry 2020 model. It was further gathered that the Senate constantly acquires Toyota Sports Utility Vehicles.

The petition which was filed by Roland Otaru, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, on behalf of the contractors, was dated July 17, 2020, with Reference Number OO/LIT/LAG/076/07/20.

It was addressed to the President and copied to the Senate President, the Speaker of the House and the National Assembly Service Commission.

It was titled, ‘Re: Refusal of the National Assembly to Pay Our Clients Money Due and Payable to Them in Respect of Contracts Executed for the National Assembly Since 2017.’

The petition read in part,

“It is as a result of your zero tolerance for corruption that we, on behalf of our clients, convey to you sir, the refusal of the National Assembly to pay our clients the various contract sums owed our clients despite the supply of various cars and office equipment to the National Assembly by our clients since 2017.

On the instructions of our clients, we wrote letters of demand to the Clerk of the National Assembly and up till now, there is no any iota of response to our letters of demand.

Sir, as our President who has zero tolerance for corruption, we have it on good authority that funds have been provided for the National Assembly by your government to pay all outstanding debts owed by the National Assembly, but the principal officers of the National Assembly chose to look the other way and have failed, refused and/or neglected to pay the debts owed our clients despite both oral and written demands.”