Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu and George Akume, All Progressive Congress Senator from Benue State has urged the federal government to be cautious about calls for the sales of national assets as been clamoured for by some notable Nigerians.
The Deputy Senate president while leading other senators on Wednesday to kick against the call, stressed that sales of nation’s assets is not the way out of the current economic recession.
Speaking on the floor of the senate during a debate on the state of the economy,
Ekweremadu called for constitutional amendment stopping the sharing of accruable revenue to the federation account.
Business mogul, Aliko Dangote, had earlier called for the sales of the assets while Senate President, Bukola Saraki also made the same call during his welcome address on Tuesday.
Ike Ekwerenmadu and George Akume disagree with the calls and urged the federal government to look for other solutions aside the sale of our assets during the debate.
They argued that sales of assets is not the solution to our present economic crisis.
“UAE does not even allow you close to oil wells, let alone sell them,” Ekwerenmadu said.
“For a country like Saudi Arabia, its budget each year is run by investments from oil revenue. Other countries are investing; I am sure we will not be fair to the next generation if we sell off our assets.
“If we must sell, we have to sell the non-performing assets so that people can turn them around and create employment.”
“We need to amend section 162 especially from 3,4,5,6 where each money in the federation account were shared,” he said.
Akume argued that the country should focus on recovering stolen funds.
