The Nigerian Senate has asked the Minister of Transport, Chibuike
Amaechi, to resign his appointment as Minister or apologize to the
Senate and Nigerians over the Lagos-Calabar rail project that has
generated a lot controversies in the last 48 hours. Members of the
National Assembly and the presidency have been at loggerheads after
media reports alleged that the National Assembly members had removed the
Lagos-Calabar rail project from the budget presented to it by President
Buhari.
The reports alleged that the National Assembly members diverted
the money meant for the said project to the Lagos-Kano project,
favoring the Northern region. Speaker of the House of Representatives
Yakubu Dogara and Chairman House Committee on Appropriation Abdulmumin
Jibrin, via their twitter handles refuted the claims while the Chairman
Senate Committee on Transport, Gbenga Ashafa, in a statement he
released, said although the project was not included in the original
budget forwarded to the National Assembly by Buhari, Minister of
Transport, Rotimi Amaechi approached his committee to include the said
project.
Read the senate's position on the matter below...
The
Senate today (Monday, April 11) advised the Presidency to come clean
with Nigerians on the 2016 Budget and stop engaging in surreptitious
campaigns of calumny against the Senate in order to cover up its serial
errors.
Reacting
to claims in the media credited to the Executive arm of government on
the 2016 budget, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, chairman, Senate
Committee on Media and Public Affairs, in a statement in Abuja, said the
National Assembly had bent backwards to wring a coherent document out
of the excessively flawed and chaotic versions of the budget proposal
submitted to the National Assembly.
He
said : "while the executive is mandated to prepare and lay before the
National Assembly a proposed budget detailing projects to be executed,
it should be made clear that the responsibility and power of
appropriation lies with the National Assembly. If the presidency expects
us to return the budget proposal to them without any adjustments, then
some people must be living in a different era and probably have not come
to terms with democracy."
"We
make bold to say however, that the said Lagos-Calabar rail project was
not included in the budget proposal presented to the National Assembly
by President Muhammadu Buhari and we challenge anyone who has any
evidence to the contrary to present such to Nigerians."
Since
the beginning of the 2016 budget process, it is clear that the National
Assembly has suffered all manners of falsehood, deliberate distortion
of facts, and outright blackmail, deliberately aimed at poisoning the
minds of the people against the institution of the National Assembly. We
have endured this with equanimity in the overall interest of Nigerians.
Even when the original submission was surreptitiously swapped and we
ended up having two versions of the budget, which was almost
incomprehensible and heavily padded in a manner that betrays lack of
coordination and gross incompetence, we refused to play to the gallery
and instead helped the Executive to manage the hugely embarrassing
situation it has brought upon itself; but enough is enough."
"This
latest antics of this particular minister of transportation, Rotimi
Amaechi, is reckless, uncalled for and dangerously divisive. Apart from
setting the people of the southern part of the country against their
northern compatriots, it potentially sets the people against their
lawmakers from the concerned constituencies and sets the lawmakers
against themselves. This manner of reprehensible Mischief has no place
in a democracy. We hereby demand from Mr. Amaechi a publicly tendered
apology if he is not able to show evidence that the Lagos-Calabar road
project was included in the budget. Otherwise, he should resign
forthwith.
"Finally,
by the provision of Section 81 (4) (a) and (b) of the constitution, the
President is allowed to sign the budget and kick-start the
implementation of the other areas that constitute over 90 percent of the
budget where there is agreement between both arms, even as we engage
ourselves to resolve the contentious areas, if there were any. We
therefore maintain that even this contrived discrepancies are not
sufficient excuse not to sign the budget into law."
"We
therefore urge President Buhari to sign the 2016 budget without any
further delay. For every additional day that the president withholds his
assent from the bill, the hardship in the land, which is already
becoming intolerable for the masses of our people gets even more
complicated. Certainly, as primary representatives of the people we
shall not vacate our responsibility and watch the people continue to
suffer unduly."
Signed
Sen. Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi
Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs
