Senate Leader, Yahaya Abdullahi, has described the controversy trailing the National Assembly’s planned purchase of sports utility vehicles amounting to N5.5bn for federal lawmakers as an insult.
He stated this on Wednesday in an interview with journalists in his office in Abuja.
The Senator said the burden on the shoulder of the Senator was not a small task and that a sport utility vehicle for their work was not too much.
According to him, “What is the problem there? It is an insult to say that a Senator of the Federal Republic cannot ride a jeep in Nigeria. It is an insult.
“The N5.5bn is from the National Assembly fund and it is budgeted for every year which they will pay back at the end of the tenure.
“I was a permanent secretary. I know what ministers get, we cannot even compare ourselves to ministers because we are higher than the minister.
“For you to say that a Senator of the Federal Republic cannot drive a jeep today, come on, that is an insult.
“Go and tell the people that the work that we do, is more than the work of ministers.
“The weight that is on me today, there is no minister of the Federal Republic that has it,” he stated.
