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Reps to investigate Nigeria’s agreement with Russia on Ajaokuta
The agreement signed by the Nigerian Government and Russia on the resuscitation of the moribund Ajaokuta Steel Company, will come under scrutiny, as the House of Representatives begins its investigation.
The lower house of the National Assembly, which alleged that the terms of the contract we’re not made known to Nigerians, resolved at the plenary on Tuesday to beam its searchlight on the agreement.
This resolution was made following the unanimous adoption of a motion moved by Uzoma Nkem-Abonta titled ‘Call for details of the agreement between Nigeria and Russia on the completion of the Ajaokuta steel company project.’
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The House therefore mandated the Committees on Steel; Treaties, Protocols and Agreements to interface with the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, on the agreement.
The lawmakers also mandated the House Committee on Treaties, Protocols and Agreements to review all extant treaties entered into by the Federal Government and other countries to ensure conformity with the Constitution.
Nkem-Abonta, in the motion, recalled that the 8th National Assembly passed the Ajaokuta Steel Completion Fund Bill in 2018 and transmitted it to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent, which was withheld.
According to him, the bill had been reviewed and the concerns raised by the President addressed, re-gazetted and had passed first reading in the 9th House.
He also recalled that President Buhari was reported to have signed a government-to-government agreement with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, at the recently concluded Russian-Africa summit in Sochi for the Russian engineering and construction group, MetProm, to revive the company while the African Export-Import Bank would finance the project.
Nkem-Abinta however drew the attention of the House to section 12 of the Constitution, which provided that no treaty between the federation and any other country “shall have the force of law except to the extent to which any such treaty has been enacted into law by the National Assembly.”
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