Chibuike Amaechi, the Minister of Transport, was asked by the Nigerian
Senate to resign his appointment as Minister or apologize to the Senate and
Nigerians over the Lagos-Calabar rail project that has generated a lot hullabaloos
in the last 48 hours. Members of the National Assembly and the presidency have
been at loggerheads after media reports purported that the National Assembly
members had removed the Lagos-Calabar rail project from the budget presented to
it by President Buhari.
The information purported that the
National Assembly members diverted the money meant for the said project to the
Lagos-Kano project, favouring 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 report he issued,
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
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