By Our Correspondent
The Upper Chamber of the National Assembly, on Tuesday, suspended the consideration of the 2023 budget for the Ministry of Defence due to the inability of the Minister, Bashiru Magashi, to honour its invitation.
The NewsZenith reports that the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on the resuscitation of the Nigerian Naval ship, NNS Aradu had summoned the minister to appear before it in Abuja.
The NNS Aradu is the largest and most powerful vessel in the fleet of Navy.
The Senate Committee on Defence resolved to suspend consideration of the budget after the former Senate Leader, Yahaya Abdullahi (PDP, Kebbi North), drew the attention of other members of the committee to the fact that the minister had failed to honour its summon on three consecutive times.
The Senate had summoned the Minister to come and explain why the Naval ship was grounded.
“The minister had refused to honour all three invitations forwarded to him by the Ad-hoc Committee in the last three months,” he said.
Abdullahi reminded his colleagues that a motion was raised on the floor of the Senate Chamber in February on the need to resuscitate the NNS Aradu, which is Nigeria’s flagship.
He recalled that the Senate subsequently set up an Ad-hoc Committee chaired by him to interface with the Minister of Defence, with a view to finding ways to resuscitate the grounded ship.
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