‘Why Buhari Rejected Peace Corps Bill’

President Muhammadu Buhari has in a letter sent to the House of Representatives rejected the proposed Peace Corps Establishment Bill.

In the letter, read on the floor of the House Tuesday by the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, the President cited security concerns and financial constraints of funding the organisation by the government as his reasons for declining assent to the bill.

The National Assembly passed the bill in 2017 after a prolonged battle involving the organisation and security agencies, especially the police.

In another development, the House has ordered the Ministry of Finance to look into the indebtedness and source for funds to offset the N9.1 trillion debt owed local contractors in the last three years as reflected in the report by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Debt Management Office (DMO).

Adopting a motion by Aliyu Da’u at the plenary session presided by Dogara, the House mandated its Committee on Aids, Loans and Debt Management to determine the efforts of the DMO in relation to Federal Government’s inability to pay local contractors.

The committee is also to investigate the actual indebtedness of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government to local contractors in the last three years.

Also, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has described the allegation by Buhari that the party squandered $500 billion oil proceeds within 16 years as baseless, unfounded and unsubstantiated.

The party, therefore, urged the President not to allow his aides to railroad him into peddling such allegations and bandying of unverified figures, as doing that could detract his personality.