Public affairs analyst, Mahdi Shehu, has criticised the National Assembly for its decision to probe the $460 million Chinese loan obtained by former President, Goodluck Jonathan for the Abuja Metropolitan CCTV project, describing the move as politically motivated and hypocritical.

In a post shared on X on Thursday night, Shehu described the probe as a desperate exercise in futility and an attempt to dance naked in the marketplace while angels are cursing the dancers.

According to him, the decision of the lawmakers to revisit a project approved more than a decade ago shows what he called limitless shamelessness and an unintelligent desperate excursion into dirty, smelly, murky waters.

“Jonathan has suddenly become an enemy that must be destroyed, restrained, or intimidated because of 2027; a year where nobody even has the guarantee to reach,” he wrote.

Shehu argued that the loan in question was properly processed and approved by the National Assembly during Jonathan’s administration, unlike several loans obtained under successive governments.

He compared the figures across administrations, noting that while Jonathan left behind a debt stock of about N12 trillion, former President Muhammadu Buhari raised it to N77 trillion, and the current administration under President Bola Tinubu has reportedly collected N144 trillion and is still counting.

“Unlike Buhari’s and Tinubu’s excruciating loan jamboree, Jonathan’s CCTV loan was subjected to legislative processes and duly approved by the National Assembly,” Shehu stated.

The outspoken critic accused lawmakers of selective investigations, saying they had turned a blind eye to more questionable transactions under previous and current administrations.

“If the National Assembly has any sense of investigative decency, they should be probing Buhari’s N30 trillion ‘Ways and Means’ obtained in absolute secrecy and defended by the rubber stamp Senate of that regime,” he added.

Shehu also questioned why there was no probe into what he described as Tinubu’s convenient loans, which he claimed had risen to N150 trillion, or the alleged N7 trillion 2025 budget padding and N10.5 trillion constituency projects that reportedly failed.

He further cited unresolved issues such as the alleged N210 trillion unaccounted proceeds from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) between 2017 and 2023, and the $7 billion meant for refinery repairs which, according to him, vanished without trace.

“Just last week, the Finance Minister claimed that they distributed N330 billion to vulnerable groups with no single verifiable evidence. Yet the National Assembly stood on ‘his mandate,’” Shehu wrote.

He lamented that the lawmakers had ignored the suffering of millions of Nigerians facing poverty and hunger.

“Currently, 139 million Nigerians are living in squalor and abject poverty, with 39 million malnourished children and 69 million out-of-school children, while university lecturers and doctors are on strike. But none of these concerns interest the National Assembly to probe,” he said.

“All these victims of injustice are praying daily and the day their prayers are answered will be the day of regret at a time when regret has no value.

“Nigerians are still waiting for the National Assembly to hold a public hearing and probe of the findings of Mr Obaze who investigated the central bank,” he added.

NASS probe of Jonathan’s CCTV project politically motivated  – Mahdi Shehu