The event concerning the Nigeria 2016 budget and its discrepancies has
crowded the internet space in the past few weeks. Nigerians both locally
and in diaspora have been throwing in questions especially aiming at this
President Buhari’s Administration on why such shocking revelations have
been made concerning the Nigeria 2016 Budget.
With the way and manner this administration has preached Change, the talks
on fighting corruption and leading a corrupt free administration, one can
only stop to wonder why then do we have such embarrassing revelations in
the Nigeria 2016 Budget which clearly depicts hidden acts of corruption and
deceit.
How such an incompetent document passed the muster of presidential scrutiny
and snaked its way to the National Assembly, remains befuddling.
How can this administration be expected to be taken very seriously, when
its budget for the Ministry of Defence is greater by far than the budget of
the Ministry of Science and Technology given Nigeria’s current
circumstance? One particular example being that the MOD’s budget for
procuring sporting equipment for the Army, exceeds the budget for the same
item for the entire federal ministry of Sports and Youth development, the
Defence ministry depends on importation of Arms and military equipment, now
we ask: where is the defence money going?
Before now, they had been speculations that the Executive had a hand in the
Senate President’s trial but now with the discoveries made by the National
Assembly and the verdict of the Supreme Court concerning Saraki’s trial,
Stella Oduah and Andy Uba’s court cases, one can then say the National
Assembly is being blackmailed by the Executive to go easy with the Nigeria
2016 Budget; thereby hindering the discovery of other discrepancies in the
Budget.
Is the Executive trying to scare other Legislatures by dragging their
colleagues to court? How long can the fate of Nigerians continue to be
toyed with?
Going down memory lane, we can recall that this administration never
supported the present Speaker of House of Representative, Yakubu Dogara and
the Senate President, Bukola Saraki. Could it be possible that this
discoveries made in the 2016 Budget wouldn’t have been if they, the
Executive had gotten their way in positioning people of their choice in
those key positions?
The National Assembly needs to be commended for spotting and bringing to
light the gross errors of Nigeria’s 2016 Federal budget. And the Executives
should kindly let the Legislature do its work, if not for anything, for the
sake and love of country.
Kayode Solarin is a concerned Nigerian, he writes from Lagos.