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By Owei Lakemfa

I have been to a number of budget ‘defence’ sessions in the National Assembly, and some were like bazaar sessions with buying and selling going on.

On some occasions, I watched a ‘Distinguished Senator’ who was a Committee Chairman, perform. He was unperturbed that he was sitting in public with journalists present. He left no one in doubt that he was sitting, primarily to extract juice from the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, appearing before him. Like a corrupt police officer at a counter, he made all sorts of demands, with members of his panel nodding their heads.

He would ask what provisions in the budget had been made for him and his team or, how did the chief executive of the MDA expect them to work so hard on budgets and get peanuts in return? If, for example, the government official explains that there are travels, including overseas provided for in the budget for the ‘Distinguished Senators’, he would ask for an increase in the number of trips.

He would then pause as if lost in thought, and then enquire how much foreign airline tickets cost and, frown that the proposed budgets do not adequately cover the cost of first class tickets. At the end of session, having hiked the proposed budget, he would assure that the new proposals would be passed and that he would soon visit the MDAs concerned. He was a sanctuary of corruption in the National Assembly.

There is an ‘Honourable Member’ who uses his knowledge of forensic accounting to intimidate the MDAs who are, in many cases, led by chief executives who are ready to play ball. He would tear down particular budget proposals, engage the chief finance officer of the MDA in what may seem to be professional arguments on the budget proposals. After wearing out the confidence of the finance officer or intimidating him, he turns to the now hapless chief executive, offering to help the MDA with its seemingly tattered budgets proposals.

Essentially, binary budgets are passed annually by the National Assembly; one submitted by the executive and the other, by the legislators. In considering the former, the National Assembly grafts its own budget on that submitted by the Presidency.

While signing the 2018 Budget allegedly under protest, then President Muhammadu Buhari accused the National Assembly of ‘padding’ it by introducing 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion.

He wailed that the insertions “relate to matters that are the responsibility of the states and local governments, and for which the Federal Government should therefore not be unduly burdened.”

Conversely, he said the National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration. He claimed that: “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 conceptualised, designed and costed and will therefore be difficult to execute.”

He further revealed that “many of these new projects introduced by the National Assembly have been added to the budgets of most MDAs with no consideration for institutional capacity to execute them or the incremental recurrent expenditure that may be required.” In other words, the new insertions were, basically, duplications, yet the funds are approved.

As President, he clarified that: “The logic behind the Constitutional direction that budgets should be proposed by the executive is that, it is the executive that knows and defines its policies and projects.” Despite this, and his knowledge that the budget was packaged in criminality, Buhari signed it.

The defence of the NASS by then spokespersons, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi and Abdulrazak Namdas was that it had the powers to do what it deems fit with the budget.

Its argument was that: “Adjustments and reductions in the locations, costs and number of projects approved were made in order to address geo-political imbalances that came with the executive proposal. The introduction of new projects was done to ensure the promotion of the principles of Federal …Character as contained in Section 14, subsection (3) of the 1999 Constitution…”

It added that: “The number of projects had to be increased in order to give a sense of belonging to every geo-political zone of the country to ensure socio-economic justice, equity, fairness, and to command National loyalty.”

If the claims of the NASS were true, all it needed to do was to return the budget to the Presidency for necessary adjustments, rather than rewrite it or, write and pass its own budget.

After signing such budgets annually, Buhari again, wailed openly while signing the 2022 Budget that 6,576 new projects had been smuggled into it by the National Assembly.

Since I am not sure a gun was held to President Buhari’s head while signing those budgets which we all know border on criminality, my conclusion is that the racketeering was mutually agreed by both arms of government and was beneficial to the perpetrators.

Interestingly, there is a continuum: then Senate President Ahmad Lawan, returned to the Senate albeit under controversial circumstances, while then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, is currently the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu.

Given this culture of impunity, the claims by Senator Abdul Ningi of PDP Bauchi, that the 2024 Budget was padded by N3.7 trillion or over 10 per cent of the N28.78 trillion budget, did not come as a surprise. He, as an old Senator, has been part of this culture. Therefore, his claims or revelations must have startled his fellow ‘Distinguished Senators’. They neither gave him the floor to explain himself, nor provide facts why they think his claims were frivolous. They simply suspended him for three months. The sin Senator Ningi seems to have committed is that having been invited to the table, he did not observe the ethics that you do not talk while eating.

A similar punishment was inflicted on Abdulmumin Jibrin in 2016 when as the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, he revealed that the 2016 Budget was padded. He had gone to the extent of naming the then Speaker, Deputy Speaker , Chief Whip and Minority Whip of allocating N400 billion to themselves in the NASS Budget.

During the session on Ningi, another Distinguished Senator, Jarigbe Jarigbe, Cross Rivers North, was exposing some of his colleagues for collecting humongous amounts of at least N500 million each. His microphone was quickly switched off before he could inflict more damage.

Some claimed such monies were for constituency projects. Who supervises such projects; who oversights them? Do they pass through the normal public procurement and contract processes? Side-tracking criminality does not change its essence.