PRESS RELEASE

1.We have noted the statement issued on April 21, 2019 by Mr Bola Tinubu wherein he stated his reasons for sponsoring or supporting some aspirants to various leadership positions in the forthcoming 9th Assembly. Ordinarily, this would not have elicited any response from Speaker of House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara, as Tinubu is entitled to sponsor those he believes will have no choice but  answer to his dog whistles anytime he blows same in his capacity as the self acclaimed National Leader of his party.

2. If Tinubu had confined his intervention to stubborn facts,  this response would not have been necessary. He, however, used the opportunity to manufacture falsehoods and paint a non-existing picture of the stewardship of Mr Speaker and the work of the 8th House of Representatives under his watch. It is therefore, incumbent on us to set the records straight for posterity.

3. Tinubu accused leadership of the National Assembly of stymieing “APC’s legislative initiatives while attempting to hoist noxious reactionary and self interested legislation on the nation”. He said further: “Just look at the way Saraki and Dogara and their ilk hijacked the Budget Process these past four years. National budgets were delayed and distorted as these actors repeatedly sought to pad budgets with pet projects that would profit them”. He continued, “Even worse, they cut funds intended to prosper projects that would have benefited the average person. After four years of their antics halting the progress of government, we should do all we can to prevent a repeat of their malign control of the National Assembly”. He generously used the usual unexplained words like installing a progressive leadership and so on.

4. We do not expect Tinubu to dwell on brazen mendacity, much less  murder facts and decorum in his rabid bid to justify his patently clear facist agenda of controlling all levers of power in Nigeria. Tinubu's nocturnal agenda has no parallel in the history of any democracy and it is more loathsome when he throws caution to the winds and maligns government officials who are doing a yeoman’s job of stabilising the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, even in spite of political differences.

5. It is on record that the Mr Speaker has done more to stabilize this government than Tinubu and his ilk whose stock in trade is scheming, manipulation and subversion especially when they feel they cannot be caught. When the history of Buhari's administration is written by those who know the truth of what really transpired in the last four years, Tinubu’s pretentious loyalty to Mr Buhari will then be exposed. We won't say more but no matter how long it may last, the truth will one day overtake lies. Perhaps, Tinubu is still bitter about the leadership contest for Speakership of the 8th Assembly, even though the actors have moved on culminating in Dogara magnanimously facilitating the appointment of his opponent in the race and Tinubu's protege as House Majority leader.

6. The chief cause of delay in enacting the budget is the persistent refusal or neglect of the Executive to present it in good time.

For the records, in the last four years, there was no urgency or plan by the Executive to achieve a January to December budget cycle. For the avoidance of doubt, we will show the dates Budget estimates were submitted by the Executive in the last four years below:

- 2016 Budget was submitted on December 22, 2015, exactly nine days to the end of the  year.

- 2017 Budget submitted on December 14,2016, just 17 days to the end of the year.

- 2018 Budget was presented on November 7, 2017, the earliest even though it also fell short of the 90 days stipulated by the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

- 2019 budget was presented on December 19, 2018 exactly 12 days to the end of the year. 

As if the late or delayed submission of budget estimates wasn’t enough, in most cases, Ministers and heads of agencies contributed to the so-called delay by consistently refusing to appear before National Assembly Standing Committees to defend their budget proposals in line with the provision of the Law. At some point, the leadership of the National Assembly had to take up the issue with the President who advised his Ministers to honour legislative invitations to defend their budgets. 

7. What Nigerians don't know is that the Executive, through the various Ministries, continued to propose additional projects to be included in 2018 budget even as at April and May  of 2018 which further delayed passage of 2018 budget. These were communicated officially and if anyone is in doubt, we will exhibit the letters with the dates they were written and received. In any case, National Assembly inserted a clause in the Appropriation Bill consistent with S.318 of the Constitution which allowed the Budget to last for 12 months after Mr President’s Assent. This enabled the Executive to spend more of the capital component of the Budget as it still had 12 months protected by law.

8. As an activist legislature, the National Assembly effected an amendment to S. 81(1) of the Constitution to compel Mr President to present the Budget estimates not later than 90 days to the end of a financial year in order to solve this problem but unfortunately, very unfortunately, Mr President declined assent to the bill which was passed by both the National Assembly and over 2/3rds of the State Assemblies.

9. National Assembly made a further attempt to make the Budget process much better by improving the institutional capacity of the Parliament to process and pass National budgets by passing the National Assembly Budget and Research Office (NABRO) Establishment Bill into law. It was loosely modelled after the American Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Again, Mr President declined  assent to the Bill.

10. It is important to emphasize that National Assembly is not a Rubber Stamp Parliament and reserves the right, working cooperatively with the Executive to interrogate projects unilaterally inserted by the Executive branch without the input of or consultation with Parliament. The legislature cannot be accused of padding a Budget it has unquestionable constitutional power to review. The Budget is a law and the Executive does not make laws. Therefore, it's only the ignorant and those who hold dubious academic certificates that say the maker of a document has padded the document that only he can constitutionally make. In the words of his lordship, Mr Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High court, in suit No.FHC/ABJ/CS/259/2014 delivered on March 9, 2016, “the National Assembly was not created by drafters of the Constitution and imbued with the powers to receive ‘budget estimates’ which the first defendant is constitutionally empowered to prepare and lay before it, as a rubber stamp parliament. The whole essence of the budget estimates being required to be laid before Parliament is to enable it, being the Assembly of the representatives of the people, to debate the said budget proposals and to make its own well informed legislative inputs into it.”

11. Parliamentarians are representatives of the Nigerian people and you don’t expect them to rubber stamp budgets that are heavily skewed and lopsided against most sections of the country. It is their responsibility to ensure equitable and even distribution of capital projects across all the nooks and crannies of the country, if the Executive fails to do so. In any case, it is false to state that legislative intervention in the Budget Process is to benefit the legislators and not their constituencies. We challenge Tinubu to prove otherwise. He should also show in what way the 8th Assembly acted differently from other Assemblies of the past to warrant the kind of language used. In any case, aspirants to the Senate Presidency and Speakership he is sponsoring are majority leaders in the 8th Assembly and took part in the Budget Process that he made the chief basis of his crude attack. This proves beyond doubt the hypocrisy of Tinubu’s stated reasons for supporting his candidates. He should find better reasons other than the lies being peddled about the Budget and obstructing government business. Tinubu shouldn't take better informed Nigerians for fools. Otherwise, when he sought to take control of the 8th Senate and 8th House in 2015, was it because of any Budget Saraki and Dogara had delayed or pet projects they had inserted into any Budget before 2015? Tinubu must come clean on this matter. He should let Nigerians know why he wants to install Senate President, Speaker and leadership of the 9th Assembly. He may yet win the support of some of them if he comes clean on this matter.

12. The 8th National Assembly is on record to have supported Mr President's requests on critical issues of governance. We backed him by Resolution on the issue of fuel subsidy, we backed him on the National Minimum wage, even though we were more sympathetic to workers' rights. In security matters, we never cut any proposal from Mr President save our refusal to rubber stamp a clear constitutional overreach of

spending $1 billion in arms purchase without appropriation. We have passed more Bills than any Assembly before us including Bills that are helping government improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria, and there were times we passed Bills within 2 legislative days. Is Tinubu genuinely ignorant of all these?

13. We challenge Tinubu to list out the Bills he claimed were not passed by the National Assembly. The oil and gas or petroleum sector is the most important and critical sector of our economy which accounts for over 70 percent of our earnings, the Executive didn’t forward a single Bill to the National Assembly to reform and reposition the sector in the last four years even when repeatedly urged to do so by Mr Speaker in his first year in office. Lawmakers waited in vain and had to take the bold initiative of crafting a Bill - Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PGIB) among others, passed it in record time and transmitted same to Mr President for assent. This Bill was vetoed without an alternative Legal framework proposed by the Executive. Did Tinubu miss this also?

14. Tinubu should mention the so-called bills the Executive sent to National Assembly and were delayed to show he is a man of honour or forever keep his peace.

Could someone also challenge Tinubu to list all the “noxious reactionary and self interested legislation on the nation”? Can he name the bills that are reactionary and not in the national interest? Is this how wayward lust for power blinds the reasoning of people we should ordinarily respect? Is it not most unfair, unpatriotic and wicked  for Tinubu to have resorted to factoids in promoting his known fascist agenda which he mistakenly thinks he is keeping secret.

15. Finally, we advise Tinubu to be circumspect in his use of language. In this case, he spoke as a spokesperson of depravity. Our reaction must therefore be seen as a provoked counter-punch. Any one can descend into the gutter if he so wishes but no one has a monopoly of gutter language. We won't run an adult day care centre anymore on matters like this.

Turaki Hassan 

Special Adviser (Media & Public Affairs) to Speaker House of Representatives

April 23, 2019.