Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Sulaiman Yusuf Lasun, has vowed not to step down amidst allegations of mounting pressure on him to quit his position.
He described the insinuations as mere speculation. “It’s not correct, that is speculation. Why will I resign when I went through an election on the mandate of the Speaker?” he asked.
Lasun, who made the declaration while fielding questions from journalists shortly after inaugurating the 36-member welfare committee appointed by Speaker Yakubu Dogara, reiterated that the current mandate of the present leadership of the House is genuine.
He also defended the alleged huge budgetary allocations to the National Assembly, saying the money is not as huge as Nigerians are being made to believe.
According to him, the current leadership of the House was not selected by the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC), insisting that their mandate was given by the members of the parliament in a free and fair election.
He said that no one or any group of persons, irrespective of their grouse can force him out of office of the Deputy Speaker.
On the N120 billion allocated to the National Assembly in this year’s budget, the deputy speaker insisted that the total sum allocated to the parliament is a pittance, considering the huge task and financial needs of the parliamentary arm of government which, he said, is very huge.
He urged Nigerians to see the enormity of task the parliament undertake with its “lean budget” and therefore should not believe those who think the parliament is taking too much money from the budget. He insisted that the impression that lawmakers are taking jumbo pay is not correct.
According to him, “People should not forget that the National Assembly is the third arm of government and it should be treated as such. We are not just people voted for the sake of election; that is the third arm of government. “All over the world, it is the beginning of democracy.
“I think the legislature is the most important because that is the interface between the public and the government. Let me tell you this; for the last three years with the exception of 2015, the budget of National Assembly has been N150 billion and that is exactly 2.67 per cent of the total budget of the federation.
“So, I don’t know where people see this when they said it was 25 per cent of the budget of the federation. The budget of the National Assembly is 2.67 per cent of the budget of the federation and so it is not overblown.
“People have suddenly forgotten that we have 469 members in the National Assembly with each one having five aides, paid from the N150 billion with their technocrats; we have National Assembly Commission all of them draw their salaries and allowances from the N150 billion.
“But they forget that in the 2015 budget, the money has been reduced to N120 billion.”
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