BREAKING: Drama in Senate as APC Senator Questions Tinubu’s Loans, Unpaid Contractors
There was a heated confrontation during a closed-door session of the Senate on Tuesday as Senator Kawu Sumaila, representing Kano South, clashed with the Senate leadership over federal loans, abandoned projects, and alleged political deals.
Trouble started when Sumaila criticized the state of project execution across the country.
He questioned why many contractors have left project sites abandoned due to lack of payment, despite the National Assembly approving massive loan requests for President Bola Tinubu.
Sumaila warned his colleagues that the failure to fund these projects would severely hurt the re-election campaigns of lawmakers and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027.
“Contractors were not paid despite huge loans that this Senate has approved for President Tinubu,” Sahara Reporters quoted Sumaila as saying during the executive session.
He added that many senators, especially within the APC, would find it difficult to campaign effectively under the current economic realities.
The remarks reportedly angered Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele, who fired back by exposing an alleged backroom deal made with Sumaila before his recent defection to the APC.
According to sources within the session, Akpabio and Bamidele revealed that President Tinubu had facilitated a N90 billion ecological contract in Kano for Sumaila. They also stated that following the death of former Senator Ifeanyi Ubah, the presidency explicitly directed the Senate leadership to hand the chairmanship of the lucrative Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream over to him.
The Senate leadership viewed Sumaila’s criticism as a betrayal, but the Kano senator refused to back down, accusing the leadership of attempting to silence and blackmail him.
“The Senate President and Senate Leader cannot blackmail me,” Sumaila reportedly told his colleagues angrily. “They should take their chairmanship of the Downstream Committee and also take their N90 billion ecological contract instead of trying to silence me because I spoke the mind of the majority of senators.”
