Our politicians have gone mad again. Day in, day out, Nigerians are entertained by these folks. Rather than provide leadership, they pursue mundane things and cash in on every opportunity to distract Nigerians from the real issues.
Lest they forget, we are still in recession and prices of basic food items are still over the roof. Yet, our elected government officials care less.
The renewed madness, which until recently, almost crippled government activities, is back with a bang. Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo and his kins in the National Assembly, particularly the Senate, are at loggerheads again.
Sometimes, I am tempted to conclude that the two arms, legislature and executive, are forbidden from reaching any compromise on any issue. Long before President Muhammadu Buhari embarked on his medical vacation in the United Kingdom, the country was heading for the rocks. The ego fight between the Senate and the presidency derailed governance in the country.
Osinbajo appears to be a good student of his boss, Buhari. After all, he once claimed that Buhari treats him like a son. He is a good student and a fast learner too. Instead of building bridges and melding fences destroyed by Buhari, Osinbajo is adding more pains to injury.
Alleged budget padding by lawmakers is the cause of the latest face-off between the National Assembly and Osinbajo. There are arguments from both sides on what the law permits regarding appropriation.
Osinbajo and Federal Executive Council (FEC) members, are quick to argue that the National Assembly lacks the powers to increase, add or reduce the budget. By their own right, the argument maybe valid.
President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, think otherwise. While Osinbajo and co are trying to whip up sentiments, the law, at least for now, is on the side of the National Assembly.
Hear Osinbajo’s claims that alleged padding of the 2017 budget by the National Assembly. He argued: “This last budget, the president presented it last December. Despite the assurances that it will be passed in by February, it was not until May.
“As it turned out, we were quite disappointed that it spent a bit of time before it was approved. And thereafter, we had to go into negotiations with the National Assembly in order to get it right. “Now, there are these two broad issues about who can 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.”
Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, gave more insights. Hear Fashola: “I do not think that they (National Assembly) can sit down and legislate projects that are not federal projects, that would be doing violence to the constitution because there are three levels of government. The local and state governments have their responsibilities and the federal government should be building federal roads not state roads.
“In my budget, you will find things like motorised boreholes, primary health care centres. That is a violation of the constitution, it shouldn’t be in the appropriation law of the federal government. If the judiciary decides that it is the national assembly that should make the budget and hand it over to the executive to implement, so be it.” Saraki, while presiding over last Thursday’s plenary, fired back that the “Senate will continue to defend the constitution and ensure that anything we do is in line with the laws of the land.” Saraki in his characteristic manner, fired a shot back: “I want to say that there are times we have a number of consultations and I want to make it clear that these consultations we do with the executive will not at any time mean that we will give up the powers we have in line with the Constitution.
“I want to reassure our members on this because it is very important based on what we have heard. You may be concerned that one way or another, leadership had given up some of these powers. That is not the case.
“But I believe that as responsible statesmen, there are times we consult and do our best to work with the Executive and assist them. But as we bend backwards, I do not think that should be misrepresented that powers given to us in the constitution do not exist. That is not the case.”
If it were to be a football match, the National Assembly will be leading right now. At least, a Federal High Court has ruled that the National Assembly has the power to increase or review upward, budget estimates laid before it by the executive.
Until a superior court gives a contrary judgment, the National Assembly has the right to tamper with the budget. Femi Falana who filed the suit can decide to appeal. As Nigerians, we need to settle this issue since the 1999 Constitution as amended, is not explicit enough.
I need to quote certain sections of the 1999 Constitution as amended to buttress the point I am trying to make here. Section 80 of the constitution says that “All revenues or other moneys raised or received by the Federation (not being revenues or other moneys payable under this Constitution or any Act of the National Assembly into any other public fund of the Federation established for a specific purpose) shall be paid into and form one Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.
“No moneys shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation except to meet expenditure that is charged upon the fund by this Constitution or where the issue of those moneys has been authorised by an Appropriation Act, Supplementary Appropriation Act or an Act passed in pursuance of section 81 of this Constitution.
“No moneys shall be withdrawn from any public fund of the Federation, other than the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation, unless the issue of those moneys has been authorised by an Act of the National Assembly. “No moneys shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other public fund of the Federation, except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly.”
Sections 81, 82 and 83 also address this issue. You can read these sections to be better educated. In all of these however, the law is silent on three key things. Insertion, increment and reduction of the budget.
The executive, currently led by Osinbajo, may not cave in easily. In the coming days, we may see a replay of what happened in 2015, when former President Goodluck Jonathan, through his Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, dragged the National Assembly to court.
There are already feelers that Osinbajo may have assembled Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) and lawyers who are members of FEC to prepare their brief and be on standby to challenge the alleged insertion and increment of the 2017 budget.
The case, if it will ever be filed, will be at the Supreme Court, which in this case, is the court of first instance. Although this bickering is a distraction, I think it is necessary to set the records straight. The National Assembly is yet to recover from the bashing it got from the public over claims that it padded the 2016 budget. As we speak, principal officers of the House of Representatives are being interrogated by anti-graft agencies. This anomaly must come to an end. Let the Supreme Court intervene.
One more thing…
The face-off between the Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai and the senator who represents Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the Senate, Shehu Sani, is not new. Since the two friends, now fiends won elections in 2015, it has a battle of no retreat, no surrender.
On Thursday, Senator Sani leveraged on a story published by an online newspaper to take his pound of flesh. He accused el-Rufai of running the affairs of the state as a family estate.
Senator Sani also called on el-Rufai to shelve his alleged presidential ambition and focus on rendering good governance to the state.
“An online medium has reported about systemic nepotism, opacity and complete absence of transparency in the governance of Kaduna state are factual and the reality of the situation.
“Journalists in Kaduna state are under siege, blackmailed, arrested, pocketted or threatened with arrest and as such could not have written true stories. el-rufai jails journalists like Pinochet or Stalin. el-rufai is a man with a mouth for criticism, but without a stomach for criticism. In his two years in office, he has jailed not less than 7 Journalists in Kaduna of which many are in court,” Sani fired.
He added: “Kaduna State is run like a personal family estate without any meaningful physical achievement other than sponsored media propaganda.
“El-rufai has no money to pay traditional rulers he recently sacked, but has money to dispense as contracts to family, friends and political cronies. He has enough money to pay herdsmen, but no money to pay district heads. Kaduna is today littered with abandoned drainages to the point that the rainy season has turned the state into a ‘coastal state with creeks’. He is auctioning over two thousand government houses he inherited, but he is yet to build a hut.”