Nigerian senators justify purchase of exotic official vehicles worth N36.5 million each

The Senate on Tuesday, justified its decision to

buy 36 Sport Utility Vehicles for its members just as it clarified that the money was sourced from its 2015 budget. Chairman, Committee on Senate Services, Senator Abdullahi Gobir, who made the clarification in an interview with journalists, also described as untrue, insinuations that senators collected car loans, shortly after
inauguration of the 8th Senate.

He said each of the senators from the 36
states, who are either chairman or vice-
chairman of committees, got a vehicle, with the
understanding of their two other
colleagues.
He also put the value of each of the Land
Cruiser VXR V8 vehicles at N36.6m including
the cost of purchase, and other taxes.
He said, “A lot has been happening within the
last two days concerning the issue of
cars vis a vis car loan, and cost of the car and
we feel it is necessary to come out and
inform the public about what it is so that people
can have a better understanding of the
whole thing to avoid wrong perception as being
created among Nigerians.
“First, I would like to say that the issue that we
bought 108 cars is totally wrong, It is
not correct. We bought 36 cars. These 36 cars
because each senator in each state is
either a Chairman or a Vice Chairman and we
gave one car to each state.
“We don’t have money to buy 108 cars. On the
issue of buying cars without
appropriation. This is totally wrong because this
has been appropriated for in the 2015
budget.

...“So we used what we have in the 2015 budget
to buy the 36 cars so that it can go
round to each state.
“On the issue of the cost of the car, the
showroom price, the cost of the car is
N36.5m and we are surprised. The car we
bought is Land Cruiser VXR V8 not V6,
therefore the showroom price is about N31m
minimum and when you put 10 Per cent
tax it becomes 36.5m.
In fact you can go to the internet and download
it. It is very simple, we can give you
the website, we have several items we
downloaded from the internet, you can see
them.This particular car costs about $90,000.
“By the time you multiply that you will have
about N28.8m so when you add tax, you
will end up with about N37m. So I think what we
have purchased the car for is very
reasonable and.sensite to economic challenge.
“We are supposed to buy 109 cars but because
of the paucity of funds, because of our
sensitivity and concern for lack of funds we
bought only 36 to go round per state.
“There is no minister that hasn’t got about three
or four cars, One land cruiser, maybe a
backup and two Hilux cars. There is no director
in the civil service that hasn’t got a car,
there is no perm sec that hasn’t got a land
cruiser.
“In fact every House of Assembly has either a
Prado or a Land Cruiser and here is a
senator you say he cannot have one Land
Cruiser.
“On the issue of car loan, let me tell you, the
car loan that we were given, we have not
taken, hear it from me, we did not take the car
loan. No senator was given car loan we
did not take it.
“Currently we have money for 36 vehicles and
we procured 36. We had a close session
and we all agreed that we should give one car
per state, we sat down and agreed, who
needs the car most and that was what
happened.”