There was tension on the floor of the Senate, on Thursday, following the insistence of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators to know details of the $22.7 billion foreign loan request from the President Muhammadu Buhari.
President Buhari had asked the eighth National Assembly to approve $29.96 billion for his regime, but the leadership of the Senate at the time threw the document away then because no detail accompanied the request.
The request was re-presented by President Buhari, last December, but was reduced to $22.7 billion, claiming that the eighth National Assembly actually approved about $6bn out of the money.
However, trouble started, on Wednesday, when the Chairman of the Local and Foreign Loans Committee, Sen. Clifford Ordia, submitted the report without the details of the projects to be funded with the money.
Minority Leader of the Senate, Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe, however, drew the attention of the Senate to the anomaly and requested Senate President Ahmad Lawan to allow a clause by clause consideration of the loan request.
His suggestion was turned down by the Senate President, who said the report of the panel should not be subjected to debate, based on the rules of the Senate.
Obviously uncomfortable with the position of Sen. Lawan, Senate Abaribe warned the presiding officer that going ahead to hoodwink the Senate into passing the multi-billion dollar loan request without the details would spell doom for the country.
The matter degenerated into a serious tension with the senators viewing the development along partisan lines.
Leader of the Senate, Sen. Yahaya Abdullahi, then heeded the suggestion benue State senator, Sen. Gabriel Suswan that the Senate should go into Executive Session for 15 minutes to enable the Upper Chamber to resolve the logjam.
