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” There is no way we won’t buy the project vehicles” – Senators, Reps insist
Against all odds, The Senate and the House of Representatives on Saturday said they would go ahead with the purchase of exotics for its members despite critics from the Nigerian citizens and past leaders.
Members of both chambers of the National Assembly, who spoke to our correspondent separately, stated that lawmakers needed the vehicles to function efficiently.
The Senate plans to procure cars worth about N4.7bn, the House will spend between N3.4bn and N4.2bn on choice brands for its 360 members.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, told one of our correspondents that the leadership of the upper chamber was expecting the invitation of President Muhammadu Buhari over the plan to purchase ‘project vehicles’ for the use of the various committees.
Buhari had during the last presidential media chat pledged to initiate a meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly on the issue but the parley had yet to hold several weeks after.
But the Senate spokesperson said since the proposed meeting was an initiative of the President, the leaders of the red chamber would wait until they were invited.
Abdullahi said, “ for the use of the committees. It is the consideration of the 2016 budget at both chambers that has delayed it. The money has to be appropriated for. We are still buying the vehicles”
He added, “There is no way we can exercise our legislative functions especially in the area of oversight, using our personal cars.
“We need official vehicles to move around the country because we do not have to rely on government agencies under our supervision for such logistics if we really have to carry out an unbiased exercise.
“Nigerians should also note that we are not asking for too much by requesting for Sport Utility Vehicles as official vehicles because there is no senator or members of the House of Representatives that cannot afford one. To us, it’s not a luxury but a necessity to do our work better.”
Also, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Works, Senator Kabiru Gaya, said it was important for the National Assembly management to buy the project vehicles for lawmakers who would need them to carry out oversight functions.
He said, “ I don’t know what people mean by exotic cars because I have personal vehicles that are better than what the National Assembly is proposing to buy for us.
“You will find out that a minister uses four cars. They fuel those four cars for any of his trips. Senators get vehicles once in four years and any vehicle used on Nigerian roads for four years cannot be handed over to another senator to use. It is not possible.
“We are asking for only one car for our official use, to do our oversight, to go round the country. I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
Also, the Senate Leader, Senator Ali Ndume, said Buhari was not opposed to the National Assembly purchasing cars to carry out official assignments.
He said, “There is no way the executive will expect us to use our personal vehicles to do official work in the legislature.
“The problem is that the media is blowing the issue out of proportion. The amount being quoted was a far cry from what would be needed to purchase the vehicles.”
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Gas Resources, Senator Bassey Akpan, also said the purchase of project vehicles was crucial to the success of the parliament, if the nation was really interested in quality legislative activities.
He stated that a lawmaker needed more than a vehicle to effectively carry out his or her oversight functions across the country.
For the House of Representatives, findings showed that aside the 360 units (one to each member), additional customised vehicles would be added to the fleet of the Speaker, Mr. Yakubu Dogara; the Deputy Speaker, Mr. Yusuf Lasun; the Majority Leader, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila ; the Chief Whip, Mr. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa; the Minority Leader, Mr. Leo Ogor, and other principal officers in both the majority and minority caucuses of the House.
A senior official of the House told one of our correspondents that it also depended on the passage of the 2016 budget by the National Assembly.
The source said, “We are waiting for the budget to be passed. All the votes for the year are captured in the budget. As soon as the budget is passed and funds are released, the issue of cars should become a thing of the past.
“We are over-flogging this car issue as if it is the most important challenge facing our nation today.”
The Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Abdulrazak Namdas, was emphatic that the House would buy cars for its members as it had been the tradition over the years.
He confirmed that lack of funds had put the car project on hold for a while.
Namdas said, “There are no releases yet; we are waiting for money.
“What is a fact is that the House will certainly buy operational vehicles for members to use while going on oversight visits.
“We have explained repeatedly that these cars are the property of the National Assembly. We do not expect members to trek to project sites for inspection.
“Or, are we saying that the same agencies we are to oversight should provide vehicles to convey members to sites?
“We have to appreciate the need to seriously empower the legislature to function as an independent arm of government in a democracy.”
NNPCL and Corruption’s Final Throes
By Pius Olasanmi
In the twilight of the Obasanjo administration, when Nigerians were still capable of being outraged, when Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of refineries was a buzzword that still held some mysticism to bamboozle citizens, during a conversation, a certain man said something profound. The man said, “As a businessman, if I were the owner of these refineries, knowing that they are three decades old, I would take the last money I have, hire bulldozers, raze them to the ground, and obtain loans to build new ones.”
When we pressed him further on why he would engage in such waste, he explained that repairing the refineries is the real waste. He explained that even if the TAM were honestly carried out, a thirty-year-old refinery would never compete favourably with a new one that would integrate contemporary technology. Operating at its best, such a refinery would never be comparatively more efficient. It is therefore pointless to have spent another one naira on the refineries at that point.
A few months later, I had a conversation with a then-lawmaker on an entirely different matter. I mentioned that the National Assembly has failed by not crafting legislation that would criminalise and punish public office holders who foist wrong decisions on the country. The logic: a public office holder need not steal to be punished, wrong decisions should attract penalties for an office holder who opts for the worst of all options when there are less injurious ones.
These established premises speak to the ongoing nauseating efforts at revisionism by those who wrecked the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and its previous iteration, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Notably, this campaign to rewrite history is traceable to Engineer Mele Kolo Kyari, the disgraced immediate past Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL and his hirelings. They have suffocated the news and the public opinion space with even more lies than they spun while in office.
The Saint Kyari campaign is anchored on convincing Nigerians that the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna Refineries were fully functional when he was booted out of office. So brazen is the campaign that one of its talking heads challenged the group chief executive officer (GCEO), Engr. Bayo Ojulari, to “inform Nigerians categorically what happened to the functioning refineries he inherited from his predecessor, Engr. Mele Kyari.” The effrontery.
We have not forgotten so soon the charade that followed the baffling claim that Nigeria has spent $2.8 billion on the repair of the refineries, while they are not churning out even a single litre of refined product among them. Saint Kyari and his goons played all manner of tricks, all of which embarrassed President Bola Tinubu, who had counted on ticking off the return to productivity of the refineries as part of his achievements, only to realise that he was deceived into celebrating phantoms. Tragic.
Lest we forget, 200 trucks were arranged as props in a well-directed video clip to celebrate the re-streaming of the Port Harcourt Refinery. The disappointment. Nigerians were to learn from several reports that the Port Harcourt refinery was not producing and was instead using old, stored petroleum products to load trucks. Worse still, the Kyari crew was passing off sanction-tainted Russian-sourced crude oil refined in Malta as locally refined products. More insult was piled on the assault on our collective sensibility with the lies that the Port Harcourt Refinery exported semi-finished products. Brazen.
Meanwhile, Kyari and his hirelings called those who pointed out or protested these glaring scams all manner of names. They hid behind industry technicalities and jargon to create the impression that those of us who knew Nigerians were being robbed did not understand what we were saying. The point remains that a $2.8 billion investment can potentially build a refinery with a capacity of around 100,000 barrels per day (bpd). Of course, the actual capacity of such a refinery will depend on various factors, including the complexity of the refinery, the technology used, and the location. That is the amount that Kyari’s regime at the NNPCL took and did not give Nigerians refined products.
Fast forward to Kyari’s sack and the appointment of Engineer Bayo Ojulari, who has demonstrated that things can indeed be done differently. Kyari’s exit was expectedly followed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) going after him and his associates. The extent of the theft is better understood against the backdrop of N80 billion being found in the bank account of one of his associates. They went on the run.
Perhaps because the EFCC was biding its time on securing international warrants for the arrests of these characters on the lam, they have become emboldened. They have decided to fight back and rewrite the story of their participation in the greatest fraud against Nigerians. Engineer Ojulari’s renewed mindset, which is entrenching a semblance of the transparency Nigerians demand, became their natural target. The demons that once roamed around the corporation came out with malevolence. They started spinning stories of corruption to tarnish the incumbent who refused to hide their crimes. The objective: bring Ojulari down. But alas, he is winning the war as it stands.
His innocence is proven, and it is glaring that those who want him out are mere charlatans who can no longer ply their corrupt wares because of the impact of the new reforms. Corruption in the NNPCL is in its final throes. The fake news being unleashed against the incumbent leadership is akin to corruption’s last kicks as reforms in the sector strangulate it and its practitioners. The reforms must take place in the NNPCL, whether the industry demons like it or not.
As a parting shot, Kyari and his associates would do well to prepare their defence. In addition to accounting for the $2.8 billion they laundered in the name of repairing the moribund refineries, they must also answer for the poor decision to fix that which is irretrievably broken. Awarding contracts for Turn Around Maintenance of 59-year-old refineries that a right-thinking person had suggested should be demolished almost twenty years ago, when they were only 30 years old, is criminal. Trying to deceive Nigerians that the fake repairs worked is treason.
Olasanmi is a public affairs analyst writing from Lagos.
GRANDIS 5STAR LUXURY APARTMENT & SUITES SET TO REDEFINE LIVING IN VICTORIA ISLAND
Set to Rise elegantly against the Lagos skyline, is the Grandis 5Star Luxury Apartment & Suites. According to Adejuwon Ademola, The General Manager of the Development company, it is more than just a residential building
“it’s a lifestyle statement. Standing 17 floors high in the heart of Victoria Island, this revolutionary masterpiece of modern architecture will offer a panoramic 360° view of Eko Atlantic, Victoria Island, and Ikoyi, transforming every apartment into an exclusive penthouse experience for the world’s most discerning elite.”
Developed by Dumarco Construction Limited, a globally acclaimed company with decades of delivering complex, high-value projects in the highly regulated petroleum, oil, and gas industries, Grandis 5Star brings unmatched international safety standards, uncompromising quality, and timeless elegance into Nigeria’s luxury property market.
> “When you live in Grandis, you’re not just buying a home—you’re investing in peace of mind, world-class safety, and an effortless luxury experience that will remain pristine for decades,” says Adejuwon A. Ademola, General Manager of Dumarco Construction Limited.
The Gold Standard in Safety and Quality
Dumarco’s roots in the oil and gas sector mean the company operates to some of the strictest safety protocols in the world. Every stage—from conceptualization, design, construction, to long-term maintenance—follows internationally accepted procedures and quality assurance measures. Cutting corners is simply not in Dumarco’s vocabulary.
> “In the oil and gas industry, there’s no room for compromise. We’ve brought that same discipline and zero-tolerance for mediocrity into property development,” says Ademola. “That’s why Grandis will be one of the safest and most enduring residential developments in Nigeria.”
To ensure transparency and prevent (project complacency), Dumarco deliberately separates the developer, contractor, and consultant roles, engaging only the most competent professionals in each respective field. Dumarco’s project team includes globally recognized contractors such as Julius Berger, Cappa & D’Alberto, and Elalan, Migliore Construczione & Tecniche (MC&T) and their partners VENCO IMTIAZ CONTRACTING COMPANY (VICC) based in Dubai, UAE, Business Contracting Limited, alongside leading consultants like Morgan Omanitan & Abe, LAMBERT, and James Cubitt.
Grandis – Investments, appreciation, returns and profitability
Our selection process for the location of the project alone was pains-taking and completely thorough scientific process. Top professional companies were employed to conduct a scientific data acquisition and analytical survey of the entire Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lekki and Eko Atlantic before a project site is selected. Analyzing and acquiring areas developmental charts and trends, studying and gathering historical and present sale prices, rental charge and occupancy rates over a 50 year period from every individual street before the selection of the location of any of our developments especially true for the Grandis Project
He adds,
“Our clients and residents can be rest assured that the location of Grandis has been scientifically proven through all existing data to provide our clients with a 100% occupancy rate, highest developmental location, highest rental income and investment returns. ”
The Grandis Experience
Located minutes away from international corporate headquarters, embassies, and landmarks such as Eko Hotel, Radisson Blu, and the Radisson Red, Grandis offers unmatched convenience for professionals, diplomats, and high-net-worth individuals. Every residence is designed for both indulgence and efficiency, with high-grade finishes, smart-home systems, and private amenities that ensure seamless living.
From sunrise over the Atlantic to the glittering Lagos night skyline, residents will enjoy uninterrupted luxury, supported by discreet and highly trained staff, advanced security systems, and a design that prioritizes comfort and privacy.
> “We designed Grandis for people who want everything—security, elegance, convenience, and the assurance that their home will look as spectacular in 20 years as it does on day one,” Ademola notes.
A Legacy That Lasts
With its combination of visionary architecture, peerless safety, and meticulous maintenance planning, Grandis is built to remain iconic for generations. Thanks to Dumarco’s meticulous approach, the building’s service charges are expected to remain low while its value and appeal continue to appreciate over time.
In a market often marred by shortcuts and substandard practices, Mr Ademola says
Grandis stands as a beacon of what luxury living should be—safe, spectacular, and built to last.
“Grandis 5Star Luxury Apartment & Suites — Where safety meets sophistication, and every detail is designed for a life well-lived.”
He added
Website -www.dumarcoltd.com
Project website – www.26idowutaylor.com
Email [email protected]
Tel / WhatsApp +234 9077777883
GM – Adejuwon A. Ademola
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