The National Assembly on Thursday replied Acting President Yemi Osinbajo over his comments on the 2017 budget after appending his signature to the appropriation bill.
Osinbajo was reported to have queried some “alterations” in the budget by the National Assembly, saying they would affect the plans of the executive to execute the projects that were altered.
A member of the House of Representatives, Abubakar Lawan, had brought up the Acting President’s post-budget comments on the floor under matters of privilege at the session, which was presided over by the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara.
He cited Daily Sun and Daily Trust among newspaper publications he said quoted Osinbajo’s comments on the powers of the National Assembly to alter the budget.
Lawan noted that if Osinbajo continued to comment on a budget he signed into law, he was undermining the legislature and also assuming the duties of the judiciary at the same time.
“These comments have been coming and they are reported in the newspapers. Is the power of appropriation no longer with the legislature?” Lawan asked.
He spoke amid applause on the floor, following which Dogara summed up the position of the House, stating that there was no need to debate the issue further because there was “no debating the fact that power of the purse resides with the legislature.”
The speaker expressed surprise that Osinbajo would question the powers of the National Assembly on appropriation and reminded the Acting President that on matters of legislation, the National Assembly had powers, including the power to override the President’s veto on any bill.
“We all know where these powers are and under our watch, there is no way this House will be a rubber stamp of any executive.
“Budgets are priorities of the government because we are representatives of the people. We can say even though these are priorities of the government, based on our job of representation, these are not the priorities of the people and we can refuse to fund them.
“As a matter of fact, I don’t even want to believe that the Acting President made those statements.”
At the Senate, the Deputy Majority Leader, Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah, who raised a point of order at the plenary on Thursday, stated that the legislature was empowered by law to regulate government spending.
He stressed that the lawmakers could also adjust proposals in the appropriation bill.
“I rise this morning based on what happened yesterday in my office. About five senators bombarded my office, angrily complaining about a statement allegedly credited to the Acting President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, to the effect that the National Assembly does not possess any powers to alter the budget submitted to it by the executive.
“I have also had the privilege to work with the Acting President while practising in Lagos as a lawyer. We did a lot of cases together. He is somebody I know so much that I will rather believe that what was alleged to have been said could not have been said by him. And even it was, he must have been misquoted,” Na’Allah said..
According to him, the Senate is to check imbalance in the legislation from the House of Representatives.
“The chambers are equal. There is nothing like upper and lower chamber as far as the Constitution is concerned. It is a bicameral legislature and the intention is to put in check whatever democratic decisions arrived at in the House to avoid domination,” Na’Allah stated.
Senate President Bukola Saraki, in his remarks, also said Osinbajo might not have questioned the powers of the National Assembly on budget amendment or the Acting President might have been misquoted.
“I am sure that the Acting President must have been misquoted because there is no ambiguity in the Constitution on our responsibilities. The matter has been cleared and settled,” he said.
However, the matter took a dramatic turn when the Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, raised another point of order to fault Na’Allah on the argument that the country operates a bicameral legislature of equal chambers.
Akpabio stated that the Senate was superior to the House of Representatives due to the fact that Section 81 of the Constitution gives the power to confirm executive appointments to the Senate while Section 5(4)(b) empowers the Senate to approve the deployment of the military on combat duty outside the country.
“These are powers not given to the House of Representatives and the framers of our Constitution knew that definitely, there must be an upper chamber.
“From the duties ascribed to both chambers, it is clear that one is the upper and the other is lower,” he said.
The Majority Leader, Senator Ahmad Lawan, however, raised another point of order to counter Akpabio’s arguments.
He stated that the two chambers were equal even though the Senate was given more responsibilities than the House of Representatives.
“I served as a member of the House of Representatives for eight years and came to the Senate in 2007. I think, in fact, I am convinced that no chamber in the National Assembly can (solely) make any legislation.
“If we cannot, as a Senate, pass a bill and send it for executive assent until it goes to the House of Representatives, it means that we have equal responsibilities on this. The Senate is only given additional responsibilities.”
Saraki, however, ruled Lawan out of order, noting that it was a controversial matter and the point of order under which the Majority Leader was speaking was not for such matters.