Voice of Nigeria: Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has received the 2017 Appropriation Bill from the National Assembly.
The development came eight days after the lawmakers passed the bill.
The Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters, Ita Enang, disclosed this to State House Correspondents on Friday, after submitting the budget.
Acting President power
Mr Enang clarified that the acting president had the power to sign the budget and would do so within 30 days upon completion of the standard operation processes.
“The budget as passed by the National Assembly has just been transmitted to the acting president. I just delivered it. Let me use this opportunity to clarify an issue. The acting president has the power to assent to the budget and he will assent to it when the processes are completed.
“The acting president has the power to assent to the budget. In February, he assented to 7 or 8 bills. Those that he didn’t agree with, he wrote the Senate and the House of Representatives that he had withheld his assent from them. He has the power of the president to assent to it. But the assent to the Appropriation Bill will be after the completion of the standard operation process. The bill has 30 days within which it will be assented to, but the process can be completed within two or three days.
“So, it is not possible to say it will be assented to in so, so and so day or in two or three days. It’s upon the completion of the process and it will be done by the president and the president here now is the acting president,” he explained.
The Senior Special Assistant to the Acting President on Media, Mr Laolu Akande confirmed the development via his Twitter handle.
The National Assembly had on Thursday last week passed the budget, five months after President Muhammadu Buhari presented it before the lawmakers.
The lawmakers, however, increased the budget size to N7.44tn, from the N7.29tn proposed by the President.
