Unconfirmed reports have it that the Presidency has covertly interfered with in the budget padding impasse of the House of Representatives with an intention to remove the principal officers.
The executive arm of government has again being accused of meddling in the affairs of the House of Representatives after several links to the Senate Standing Rules saga that engulfed the Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu-led Senate of the 8th assembly.
Linus Okorie, a member of the House of Representatives from Ebonyi state, has accused the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government of plotting to remove the speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara and the entire house leadership.
The lawmaker claimed the presidency was plotting to do this by capitalizing on the allegations raised by Jibrin Abdulmumin, the former chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, who was sacked recently.
In a statement issued on Monday, August 1, Okorie, who declared his loyalty to Dogara, said the plot would fail as the speaker and other members of the house had not done anything illegal, Premium Times reports.
The Peoples Democratic Party lawmaker and a two term member of the House wondered why the lawmakers were being branded corrupt. He explained that the house has the constitutional powers to “amend, reduce from or add to” the budget estimates brought forward by the executive and that that was what the lawmakers did.
According to him, the constituency projects were never implemented by the legislatures but by the executive arm and wondered why the lawmakers were being branded corrupt.
Okorie said should the attempt to change the leadership of the house succeed and a new leadership forced on it, the President Buhari-led government would have completely “unitarized” Nigeria’s democracy and completed the push for a repressive and totalitarian brand of “democracy” hitherto unknown to literature.
The lawmaker also faulted the State Security Services and other government agencies for sealing some offices in the National Assembly.
The executive arm of government has kept a loud silence of the well pronounced budget padding saga that has exposed the monumental fraud within the lawmaking bodies.
The lawmaker claimed the presidency was plotting to do this by capitalizing on the allegations raised by Jibrin Abdulmumin, the former chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, who was sacked recently.
In a statement issued on Monday, August 1, Okorie, who declared his loyalty to Dogara, said the plot would fail as the speaker and other members of the house had not done anything illegal, Premium Times reports.
The Peoples Democratic Party lawmaker and a two term member of the House wondered why the lawmakers were being branded corrupt. He explained that the house has the constitutional powers to “amend, reduce from or add to” the budget estimates brought forward by the executive and that that was what the lawmakers did.
According to him, the constituency projects were never implemented by the legislatures but by the executive arm and wondered why the lawmakers were being branded corrupt.
Okorie said should the attempt to change the leadership of the house succeed and a new leadership forced on it, the President Buhari-led government would have completely “unitarized” Nigeria’s democracy and completed the push for a repressive and totalitarian brand of “democracy” hitherto unknown to literature.
The lawmaker also faulted the State Security Services and other government agencies for sealing some offices in the National Assembly.
The executive arm of government has kept a loud silence of the well pronounced budget padding saga that has exposed the monumental fraud within the lawmaking bodies.
No comments:
Post a Comment