‘Roads Are Bad’, ‘A Minister Uses 3 Land Cruisers’, Senate Defends Purchase Of N160m SUV

‘Roads are bad, ‘a minister uses three 3 Land Cruisers’, Senate defends the purchase of N160m Toyota Land Cruiser SUVs.

Justifying purchase of Land Cruiser over locally-made ones, Senate said they wanted a durable car that will last for 4 years.

Earlier this week, the Chairman of the Committee on Senate services, Sunday Karimi, defended the purchase of 2023 Toyota Land Cruisers for the operations of its members by claiming a Federal Minister boasts more than three SUVs in their fleet.

Recall that the Senate and the House of Representatives came under fire following reports that two the chambers of the National Assembly are set to procure and take delivery of foreign-made luxury SUVs worth about N160 million each.

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“A minister has more than three Land Cruisers, Prado and other vehicles and you are not asking them questions, why us? The issue of buying vehicles for National Assembly members, you know it is a reoccurring issue. It occurs every assembly, it will always come up”,
Karimi told reporters in Abuja on Tuesday.

“If you got to state houses of assembly today, check out, most of them before they were even inaugurated, the governor would have bought vehicles for them even local government chairmen. I drove the vehicle my local government chairman uses. So, why National Assembly?”

Justifying while they settled for Toyota Land Cruiser over locally-made ones, he said the Senate wanted a durable car that will be able to drive on bad roads as well as one that they will be able to maintain for years.

“These vehicles that you see, go to Nigerian roads today. If I go to my senatorial district, I come back spending a lot on my vehicles because our roads are bad. Am I talking to somebody?.”

“We want something that we can maintain for another four years. It is not the decisions of the senators alone, we did an analysis before arriving at Land cruiser,” he said.

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