ABUJA – In what looked like an organised scene, a group of protesters on yesterday, barricaded the main entrance to the National Assembly and demanded immediate resignation of Senate President Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara.
Ating under the aegis of National Convener of Citizens’ Action to take back Nigeria (CATBAN) the placard carring protesters acused the federal lawmakers of “budget padding” and ‘illegal insertions” in the 2018 budget.
They also claimed that the lawmakers were syphoning funds meant for constituency projects in their various senatorial districts and constituencies.
However, refusal of the NASS leadership to come and address the crowd later galvanised them into roudiness.
Some of the protesters were seen trying to climb the main gate, while others were seen shaking the gate vigorously to force their way into the premises.
They were however stopped when Police officers manning the gate, released teargas into the air.
This protest comes few days after the Senate President Bukola Saraki called for the removal of “incapable” security chiefs in the country over the continued killings and security challenges bedevilling the nation.
Saraki had submitted that the killings should not be politicised and accused the security chiefs and agencies of failing to work together.
Some of the placards have inscriptions like, “Nigerians are not represented in the sharing of loots via constituency projects”; “Dear legislators, to make laws is not to execute projects, legislators are not executives”; among others.
Addressing newsmen at the scene, convener of the group, Garba Wala, noted that concerns raised by President Muhammadu Buhari while signing the 2018 Budget, showed that the National Assembly was “stealing the common patrimony of the people through constituency projects.”
According to him, the concerns are indications that Saraki and Dogara lacked credibility and moral capacity, as such should resign.
“The President told Nigerians that our Federal legislators connived among themselves and removed priority developmental projects carefully prepared by the Federal Government to impact on the lives of the citizenry.
The National Assembly made cut of N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6, 403 private projects of their own amounting to N578 billion.
As a Civil Society Organisation, we feel pained that this year’s budget followed the regular path of stealing in the guise of bogus constituency projects.
In spite of the wishy-washy response of the National Assembly justifying its distortion of the 2018 Budget, there is ample evidence to show that they shortchanged their constituents who elected them to make laws for the good governance of the country.
With an additional sum of N170 billion for Constituency Projects, together with the sum of N100 billion already provided for in the Budget, the National Assembly still went ahead to cut allocations to important national projects.
The cut was aimed at distorting the budget in order to further increase their allocation for constituency projects.
This to us is a grave offence against the sensibilities of Nigerians.
This is one big scandal that brings to light how the nation’s annual budgets have been padded over the years to the disadvantage of 180 million Nigerians”, he continued.
He further called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to investigate the matter.
This he argued was necessary for such action to be taken to save the National Assembly from public ridicule.
Recall, President Mohammadu Buhari had while signing the 2018 Budget asserted that: “the logic behind the Constitutional directive that budgets should be proposed by the Executive is that it is the Executive that knows and defines its policies and projects”.
He noted that “unfortunately, that has not been given much regard in what has been sent to me”.
He alleged that “the National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion”.
According to him, “Many of the projects cut are critical and may be difficult, if not impossible, to implement with the reduced allocation”.
“Some of the new projects inserted by the National Assembly have not been properly conceptualized, designed and cost ascertained and will therefore, be difficult to execute.
“Furthermore, many of these new projects introduced by the National Assembly have been added to budgets of most MDAs with no consideration for institutional capacity to execute them or the incremental recurrent expenditure that may be required.”
