Knocks For Presidency Over N2.2b Banquet Hall

It has been more knocks for President Goodluck Jonathan over his administration’s approval for a new N2.2 billion Banquet Hall in the Presidential Villa, when majority of Nigerians are wallowing in abject poverty.

This development has stirred stern reactions from the civil society and some opposition politicians since it became public knowledge.

Constitutional lawyer, Professor Itse Sagay, during an interview with a national daily, described the proposed amount for a banquet hall at the villa as a wasteful project.

“I am shocked because right now, the impression we have is that the government is short of money. And you know there is this big debate going on now on whether the civil service should be reduced so that there will be more money for development.

“So, I would have thought if we have N2.2 billion, we will use it either for roads, hospitals, universities or other development projects rather than a banquet hall. In my view, it is a wasteful project for now given our tight financial circumstances,” he said.

Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo in his reaction, said the move “shows the insensitivity of the President if at this time he is budgeting N2.2 billion for a banquet hall when everybody is shouting about the high cost of living and poverty in the land.

“What special function will it perform that will warrant the new one to cost that much? All our roads are already dilapidated. Instead of building roads for us, he is busy looking for money to build a new banquet hall. It shows the  insensitivity of the president,” he averred.

The Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, while speaking through its national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the government has beaten its own record in extravagance.

He said: “It is interesting that a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is comparing the country with ‘smaller countries’ when it comes to justifying a project that will only benefit a few elite. Does the minister know that the citizens of the  so-called smaller countries enjoy uninterrupted electricity supply?

“Does he know that the citizens of those countries don’t have to queue up endlessly for petrol and kerosene; that they don’t have to depend on Okada(commercial motorcycles) for transportation; and that they have no road as terrible as the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway?

“In any case, nothing can justify the decision to spend such a huge amount of money on a Banquet Hall in a country where many go to bed hungry most nights, where youth unemployment is at a high 46.5% and where projects that could make Nigeria to achieve the MDGs, less than three years to the target date, are almost non-existent,’’ he noted.

—Jamiu Yisa