(Tribune / Nigeria) — As the controversy over the passage of the 2016 budget appropriation rages on, the House of Representatives, on Wednesday, mandated the Speaker, Honourable Yakubu Dogara, to interface with President Muhammadu Buhari over the matter.
Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari
The decision was taken after executive session of the House, where the issue was debated for several hours.
Briefing newsmen on Wednesday after the executive session, the chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Honourable Abdulrasaq Namdas, said the mission of the visit was to find out from Buhari the problem with the budget as passed.
Speaking on the outcome of the executive session, the House spokesperson, said “we were fully briefed by the chairman, Appropriation Committee and we agreed as a chamber, as a House delegated the Speaker to please, go ahead and engage the executive to identify the areas of concern and that he should report back to us.”
On the controversial Calabar-Lagos Rail project, he said “I want to reiterate here, for the second time, that the project was not among the projects submitted by the president to the National Assembly.”
Speaking further, he said “we are not saying as a House that the Calabar-Lagos rail project is not good, we know it is a viable project.
“Our own area of concern is that people say this thing was in the budget and we removed it. That is why we are making this clarification and again, I want to state it clearly that up till now, there is no communication from the Executive, the president, to the National Assembly.
“All we read in the media are other people’s opinions, but Mr President has not come out clearly on this and this is my problem with the budget that has been passed, because as we were told, this budget has been taken back to ministries for them to examine and get back to the president.
“That is why we asked our Speaker to liase with the Executive and let’s know what is the issue, because we are elected by the people and we are here to serve Nigerians,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the House has reportedly barred its chairman, Appropriation Committee, Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin, for further comments on controversies surrounding the 2016 budget.
Jibrin was alleged to have attracted N4.6 billion projects to his constituency alone in the controversial budget.
Sources present at the executive session confided in Nigerian Tribune that Jibrin was scolded by his colleagues over the development, with some of them calling for his resignation.
Meanwhile, the controversy surrounding the 2016 budget appears to have divided senators along the Northern and Southern lines.
Nigerian Tribune confirmed on Wednesday that senators of the Southern part of the country have broken ranks with their northern counterparts on the budget controversy.
It was gathered that senators from the Southern part of Nigeria insisted after a closed-door meeting late Tuesday, that President Muhammadu Buhari should withhold his assent to the 2016 budget if the Appropriation Committees of both chambers refused to include the Calabar-Lagos rail project in the 2016 Appropriation Bill.
It was also gathered that the Presidency was set to return the budget document to the National Assembly. Though some sources said the budget had been returned, sources in the assembly could not confirm the development.
Senators of the South-West and the South-South zones met on Tuesday night and resolved to oppose the removal of the Lagos-Calabar rail line.
The senators from the Southern part of the country, who were said to have met at the residence of Senator Gbenga Ashafa, to decide on the way forward for the budget.
Senators who attended the caucus meetings confided in Nigerian Tribune that the call for the supplementary budget was an attempt to deny the South an opportunity to enjoy a viable rail project.
Confirming the position of the Southern senators in an interview with Nigerian Tribune in Abuja, on Wednesday, Senator Soji Akanbi, (APC, Oyo South) said the Southern caucus of the Senate was solidly behind Ashafa’s position on the Lagos-Calabar rail line.
Akanbi noted that the argument of the appropriation committees that they could not accommodate the Calabar-Lagos rail project, because it was not included in the budget presented by Buhari was not tenable because a supplementary provision was supplied.
The Oyo South senator explained that similar situation happened in the committee of solid minerals when the rents on some of the ministry’s properties were omitted in the budget presented.
He said the officials of the ministry were asked to go and re-present a supplementary budget of N5 million which was instantly included by the committee and presented to the appropriation committee and consequently accommodated.
