Senate Approves Pres. Jonathan’s $1 Billion Loan Request to Fight Insurgency

The Senate has approved President Goodluck Jonathan‘s request for a $1 billion external loan to fight insurgency in Nigeria.

Punch reports that the loan would not be given  in cash, but through “the supply of military hardware to be paid for, over a seven-year period.”

“The request is for a ceiling of $1bn and not that, at the moment, the whole amount would be utilised. Government will procure on the terms stated, based on needs assessment of our security agencies,” said Ahmed Makarfi, chairman of the senate.

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PDP Denies Kalu’s Membership

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Southeast zone has denied the membership of former Abia State governor, Orji Uzor Kalu. 

The denial was contained in a statement issued on Friday in Enugu State, by the party’s South East zone National Vice Chairman, Col. Austin Akobundu (rtd), a copy obtained by The Nation.

READ ALSO: Former Abia state Governor, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu Speaks On Terrorism In The Country

Akobundu, who revealed that Kalu has not been readmitted into the PDP, insisted that the rumours making the round that the ex-governor has returned to the party were false, and described it as the figment of the peddlers’ imagination.

The national vice chairman further explained that the information made available to him from both Bende local government area and Abia State chapters of the party showed that Kalu is not a member of the PDP.

“He is neither registered in his Igbere ward nor recognized as having done so in Bende local government area, let alone being accepted at the state level of the party as a returnee”Akobundu said.  “For the avoidance of doubt, Orji Uzor Kalu is not member of PDP.”

He stated that despite the fact that the ex-governor visited some friends at the national secretariat of party in Abuja, where he took photograph with some naïve national officers and former political office holders as published in two national dailies does not make him a member of the PDP.

Akobundu therefore noted that the party has constitution, guidelines and laid down procedures that spell out how the party conducts its affairs including how returnees should be readmitted.

READ ALSO: Millionaire Orji Kalu Says Jonathan May Become Nigeria’s Last President

“Kalu, we should recall, was a governor at a time when our dear National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Ma’azu, was holding sway in Bauchi State. That Kalu had gone to our national headquarters to felicitate with his erstwhile colleague probably in company of others does not automatically qualify him as a member of the PDP” he said.

It would be recalled that on September 9, 2014, Orji Uzor Kalu, while speaking on the dreaded terrorist group, Boko Haram, which he said is politically instigated by some enemies of democracy in Nigeria, indicated interest to run for Senate in 2015, despite strong opposition from Governor Theodore Orji and other party chieftains with vested interests in Abia State.

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