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Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has said the report on the Samoa loan agreement was wrong.
Daily Trust, in a report, on Wednesday, titled “LGBT: Nigeria Signs $150 Billion Samoa Deal”, said the deal signed by Minister of Budget and Planning, Atiku Bagudu, has a clause that benefiting countries must allow the LGBT community to exercise their choice.
In the report, Daily Trust quoted Chairman, Human and Constitutional Rights Committee, African Bar Association (AfBA), Sonnie Ekwowusi, who reportedly alleged that the federal government, through the Samoa agreement, compromised Nigeria’s sovereignty.
“The Samoa Agreement, named after the Pacific Island, Samoa, where it was signed on November 15, 2023 is a celebration of perversity. Certain Articles of the Agreement especially Articles 2.5 and 29.5 legalise LGBT, transgenderism, abortion, teen sexual abuse, and perversity in African countries. The signing of the Agreement by Nigeria constitutes a threat to the sovereignty of Nigeria and Africa. It further debases our democracy.
“I can wager that neither Minister Atiku Bagudu nor the Nigerian officials or diplomats who signed the Samoa Agreement on our behalf, understand the import of the agreement to Nigeria’s sovereignty, let alone the destructive impact of the Agreement in Nigeria. This explains why many African bodies including the AfBA have condemned the agreement and respectfully urged African countries not to sign it,” Daily Trust quoted Sonnie Ekwowusi.
Onanuga was, however, of the view that the newspaper ought to have discarded the report after the Media Assistant to the Minister of Budget and Planning, Bolaji Adebiyi, refuted the allegation.
Adebiyi in the report, said the Samoa agreement had nothing to do with LGBT. He said it was an economic agreement that had no hidden insert or condition of same-sex or LGBT.
“The documents signed by the federal government, were strictly for economic development of Nigeria, nowhere in the documents were LGBT or same-sex marriage mentioned even remotely, and it would be wrong for anyone to imply that Nigeria had accepted those tendencies. What Bagudu signed was in relation to $150 billion trade component,” Adebiyi was quoted.
Bayo, in his argument, said Adebiyi’s comment on the report was enough to kill the story. Daily Trust got the story about Nigeria’s endorsement of the Samoa agreement wrong. If not that the paper, as usual, was bent on painting the Tinubu government black, it ought to have dropped the story following the explanation given by Adebiyi, on behalf of the Ministry of Budget and Planning. But it went ahead to publish a story that was already dead as dodo,” he said.
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