The Nigerian Navy on confirmed delivery and receipt of the controversial N5 billion presidential yacht to the country.
The director of information, Nigerian Navy, Commodore Adedotun Ayo-Vaughan, said, that the yacht had been in the country since June, 2023, stressing that it was for training purposes.
He explained that the service made a “long overdue request” for the replacement of the defunct presidential yacht during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
When asked if the inability to pay for the yacht was responsible for the delay in using it, he stated, “Correct. It’s tied to the non-payment.”
This implies that until the payment is made, the navy may not be able to use it for its operational activities.
“Under the immediate past administration, a long overdue request was made for a Presidential yacht to replace MV AMARIA, the defunct presidential yacht. It was also to be used for the presidential Fleet Review 2023 that was held in May this year.”
Consequently, the Senate has summoned an emergency sitting over the matter.
The meeting which was communicated on Friday night was initially scheduled for Saturday morning but was shifted to Monday.
According to Adaramodu, the meeting was fixed to adopt the votes and proceedings of Thursday plenary.
“The plenary has been shifted to Monday. We had initially fixed Saturday but we discovered that many senators had gone to be with their constituents. The session is just to adopt the votes and proceedings of Thursday plenary,” he said.
“We were behind time on Thursday based on various committee meetings, so we couldn’t adopt the votes and proceedings. That’s what we want to do on Monday. If we don’t adopt the votes and proceedings, all that we did cannot be filed and documented.”
