Senate President Bukola Saraki has knocked the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, over allegations of budget padding and frustrating the Senate’s relationship with the Presidency.
Tinubu had in a statement released on Saturday accused Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, of manipulating budgets to suit their selfish interests. The APC leader also accused the lawmakers of constituting roadblocks on Nigeria’s path of progress.
But responding to the allegations in a statement titled, “Saraki to Tinubu: Despite Your Smear Campaign and Hatred for Me, You Should, At Least, Dwell on Facts,” Saraki berated Tinubu for blaming him for his failures and feeding the public with malicious lies.
Absolving the Senate of any blame over delayed budgets passage, Saraki said “Most of the work is done in the various committees. These committees are headed by Senators representing different parties. It is the level of co-operation between the committees and the MDAs in the timely defence of the budget proposals and the ability of the two chambers of the National Assembly to reconcile their figures that usually determine how soon the budget is passed. To put the blame of budget delay on the Senate President or Speaker can only be mischief, or at best, playing to the gallery.”
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“It is also a known fact that any so-called delay in the passage of budgets under the Eighth National Assembly is traceable to the refusal of heads of MDAs to defend the budget proposals for their agencies on time. Last year, the President himself had to direct the Secretary to Federal Government to compel heads of MDAs to appear before the National Assembly committees following the report made to him by Dr. Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara.”
He said “So, if a man like Tinubu is spreading this falsehood about budget passage and delay being deliberately orchestrated by the National Assembly leadership, one wonders whether he tries to even understand what happens in the federal legislature at all or is that the only thing that is of interest to him is “jockeying and manoeuvring for influence.”
Speaking on Tinubu’s claims that the National Assembly leaders frustrated legislations from the Presidency, Saraki said, “we wonder what these “legislative initiatives” are because in the four years of the Buhari administration, it has only forwarded 11 bills to the Senate, apart from the routine annual appropriations and supplementary budget proposals. Two of these bills, the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Bill and the National Minimum Wage Bill, have been passed.”
The statement read that, under Saraki’s watch, “the Senate has surpassed the records of all previous Senates in the number of bills passed, the significance of these bills to the revival of the economy, the fight against insecurity and corruption, improvement in the provision of health service and the education sector, as well as better social service delivery to the generality of the people.
“The bills passed, motions moved, interventions made and frequent engagement with the people were all directed towards addressing the day to day issues that affect the lives of the ordinary Nigerians.”
“Tinubu should leave Dr. Saraki out of his schemes and manipulations towards 2023. It is obvious his arbitrary and tactless interference in the process for the emergence of the leadership of the Ninth Assembly is already falling through. The frustration from this experience might have been responsible for this needless and baseless outbursts,” the statement added.