The House of Representatives has called for details of the recently signed agreement between President Muhammadu Buhari, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin for the completion of the Ajaokuta Steel Company.
The House while mandating its committees on Steel, Treaties, Protocols and agreements to interface with the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development for that purpose, said it was constitutionally required that such agreements are ratified by the National Assembly in order to have effect.
This followed a motion on the matter by Hon. Uzoma Nkem-Abonta, who recalled that the 8th National Assembly passed the Ajaokuta Steel completion Fund Bill in 2018 and transmitted it to the President for assent, but he (the president) withheld assent to the Bill, raising certain reservations.
According to him, the said Bill has been reviewed and the concerns raised by the president addressed, regazzted and has passed first reading in the 9th House of Representatives.
He said however, reports were that President Muhammadu Buhari signed a government-to-government agreement with the Russian President, Putin at the recently concluded Russian-Africa summit in Sochi for the Russian Engineering and Construction Group MetProm to undertake necessary work to bring Ajaokuta Steel Company into operation, to be financed by the State-Owned Russian Export CenterJSC and the Cairo-based African Export-Import Bank.
He said “section 12 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,1999 as amended) provides 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”.
While commending efforts of the president, which he described as pragmatic, the lawmaker however expressed concerns that “the National Assembly as an arm of government responsible for making laws for the peace, order and good government of Nigeria and also passionate about national development, including revamping the moribund Ajaokuta Steel Company is not privy to the details of the agreement….”.
