The leadership of the Senate and those of the House of Representatives met with President Muhammadu Buhari over a supplementary budget that will bolster COVID-19 funding, as well as security.
President of the Senate Ahmad Lawan disclosed this to journalists on Monday.
He said that both he and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, had met with the President to discuss “issues of serious national concern”.
Lawan said, “Both executive and legislative arms believe that we should have supplementary budget to provide for funding of the COVID-19 vaccination in Nigeria, as well as the security, providing more resources and platforms to our security agencies.
“And today, I’m sure in Nigeria, there are no more grave issues, than COVID-19 and security situation in the country. And I want to take this opportunity to say that the security situation is gradually improving. And I’m sure that when we will give more resources to our security agencies we will see an even faster recovery of our situation.
“As for the COVID, I believe that our country, Nigeria should have some resources for our scientists to collaborate with other scientists from across the globe, to also have our own vaccine. Because we can’t rely on what other countries are doing now, every nation to itself, that’s what is happening.
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“The US is not allowing vaccines to go out of US. EU is not allowing, AstraZeneca vaccine produced in UK to be sent out of EU. India is not allowing AstraZeneca vaccine they produced to be exported out. So where do we go from here? We will have to fall back on our own capacities and abilities. And we have great scientists in this country.
“We have many Nigerians outside Nigeria, who are also helping developing the vaccines in other countries. So why don’t you bring them home? Why don’t you put some resources so they will also produce ours locally here and take care of our population, and the later other African countries especially our neighbours.
“So, I believe that we had a very good discussions and interaction with Mr. President along those lines.”
