Political Briefs
ACTING President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday, June 15, drew the ire of Bukola Saraki, Senate president and Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the House of Representatives, over his comments that the National Assembly increased the budget from N7.28 trillion to N7.44 trillion.
At plenary in both chambers, Saraki and Dogara said the lawmakers acted within their powers and did not violate any law by increasing the budget.
Reacting to an issue raised by Bala Ibn Na’Allah, deputy Senate leader, Saraki said that the Senate would not surrender its constitutional powers to the executive.
Saraki said even when the upper chamber bends backward to accommodate issues such gesture should not be misconstrued to mean weakness or that the constitutional powers assigned to it did not exist.
The Senate, Saraki insisted, would continue to defend the Constitution and ensure that its actions are covered by the Constitution at all times.
Raising the issue, Na’ Allah had said: “I want to make a personal explanation on the media reports credited to the acting president to the effect that the National Assembly does not possess any power to alter the budget submitted to it by the Executive. I offer an explanation that we have operated this Constitution from 1999 to date.
“I am sure that everybody who knows me knows that I have some limited understanding of the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I have also had the privilege to work with the acting president while I was practising in Lagos, as a lawyer.
“We did a lot of things together. So, he is somebody that I know so much, that I will rather believe that what was alleged to have been said could not have been said by him and even if he spoke on the matter, he was misquoted.
“For the avoidance of doubt, this same Constitution we operated from 1999 to date has section 80, and the title of section 80 is ‘Power and Control over Public Funds’… So, I know that the Acting President who is a Professor of Law is sufficiently trained in law to know that the National Assembly has powers to tinker with the budget. I am not making a case for him and I do not want to believe that he said what has been alleged that he said. I also want to assuage the fears of my colleagues that what was alleged to have been said does not represent the spirit of the framers of our Constitution. This explanation is necessary so that we put this matter to rest.”
Saraki, who did not allow a debate on the matter, said: “I too have a lot of our colleagues coming up to us regarding the 2017 budget. I cannot agree with you less. I am sure that the acting president must have been misquoted because there is clearly no ambiguity in the Constitution of the responsibility of the National Assembly. This matter has been cleared and settled. So, I don’t think there are any issues here that are vague. I will like to believe too that the Acting President must have been wrongly quoted… This Senate will continue to defend the Constitution and ensure that anything we do is in line with the laws of the land.”
Similarly, at the House of Representatives, Dogara said the House would not be a rubber stamp. He was reacting to an order on the breach of privilege brought by Abubakar Lawal (Adamawa State).
Besides, the speaker said it was difficult to believe that Osinbajo could say such thing about the budget. “We are men of honour. Whether legislators or executive, we are bound by the oath of office to faithfully execute that law and in the case of the executive, if it is not done, all of us know the very consequences. I don’t want to call it by its name, we know the consequences,” he said.
Signing the budget on Monday, June 12, Osinbajo said was quoted to have said that there were two broad issues about who could do what.
“The first report is about who can do what. When you present a budget to the National Assembly, it is presented as a bill, an appropriation bill. And secondly, do not introduce entirely new projects and all of that or modify projects. This is something that we experienced last year and this year again. It now leaves the question about who is supposed to do what,” he said.
— Jun 26, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT
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