At a budget defence session with the Minister of State, Mustapha Baba Shahuru and the Permanent Secretary, Frank Edozie, the lawmakers observed that N120 million, N480 million and N288 million were separately budgeted for purchase of utility vehicles.

The ministry also earmarked N100 million for transfer and management of office files and documents.“Year in year out, the ministry presents the same items in the budget and asks for more funds to execute the same projects,” the Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe-led committee said.

Clifford Ordia (Edo Central) queried the duplication captured on three different pages of the budget.“I need to understand this thing. Look at the different pages, you earmarked N120 million, N288 million and N480 million for the purchase of vehicles. Are these vehicles different? If you add up these figures, they will give you about N888 million.

“You also said that you want to spend N100 million on transfer of office files. How do you intend to do that? The people in your office, what have they been doing? I can also see from your estimates here that you captured another item for ICT, different from the N100 million for transfer of files. You need to explain these things,” he said.

Hassan Mohammed (Yobe) said the lawmakers were tired of being bombarded every year with the same items. He urged the ministry to put its house in order.Abaribe revealed that the 2017 budget (capital) of the ministry only recorded 18 per cent performance.“We will take it that the 2017 budget was abysmally low at only 18 per cent performance. This is unacceptable and I need to put it on record,” he said.

There was a mild drama when the minister could not respond to questions threw at him. Instead, he appealed to the committee to allow the permanent secretary provide the answers on his behalf. His appeal was rejected by the lawmakers.

“You were sent here to represent the minister. It means you are here to respond to our questions. Last week, we invited the permanent secretary to respond. Today, it is your turn.

“My colleagues asked me how come you are the person here and not the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola. But I told them since you were also a minister, you could be here on behalf of your minister,” Abaribe told Shahuru.

There was no official explanation of why Fashola did not turn up. Shahuru simply said he (Fashola) was attending to other state matters.Fashola was last Thursday walked out by the lawmakers over alleged “unpreparedness to face the committee for his 2018 budget defence.”

But speaking on Fashola’s non-appearance, Abaribe said: “Maybe he decided to snub us because of some media reports last week. But he ought not to have been angry by that. I am sure that was why he sent you, he did not want to come here.” The panel chairman said Fashola must be present at the next budget defence session.

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The resolutions of the upper legislative chamber was sequel to prayers moved by Enyinnaya Abaribe, senator representing Abia south.

The senate also declared Ali unfit to hold public office and condemned a letter written by Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF).

Malami in the letter told the lawmakers that the comptroller-general could not appear before the lawmakers because the matter of his uniform was in court.

The resignation demand comes barely 24 hours after the All Progressives Congress (APC) announced its intervention in the row between Ali and the senate.

Ali fell out with the lawmakers after he was summoned to explain the rationale behind customs directive that vehicle owners should pay duty on their cars.

The senate asked him to appear before it in uniform on March 8, but he failed to honour the invitation on the grounds that he had a management meeting.

Not satisfied with the reason, the senate issued a warrant mandating Ali to appear on March 16, and he honoured the invitation this time around, but in civilian attire.

This irked the lawmakers who sent him away and ordered him to return in uniform at 10am on March 22.

But, on Tuesday, Ali told state house correspondents that he would not be at the senate, citing advice from the attorney-general of the federation as the reason for his decision.

He said that he had written to the senate on the development, explaining that a case had been instituted in the court on the matter.

He said the AGF wrote to him, asking him and all parties to stay action on his summon to appear at the senate in uniform, pending the determination of an originating summons filed by one Mohammed Ibrahim.

Truly, he did not appear even though he was listed as the fourth item on Wednesday’s order paper.

Prompted by his seeming disrespect, senators went into a closed-door session at exactly 10:32am at the end of the which the lawmakers subjected the issue to a debate.

Dino Melaye, senator representing, Kogi west, said Malami’s letter was an insult to the national assembly.

While wondering where Malami got his power to direct the senate, Melaye said the AGF could not stop the upper legislative chamber from carrying out its mandate.

“What we heard from the attorney-general is an insult on the institution of the national assembly and precisely the senate, I ask again, where did the attorney-general whom we screened on this floor derive his powers from to authorise, direct the senate or suggest to the senate how to carry out our constitutional mandate given to us by the constitution?” he asked.

“The position of comptroller-general is a rank and anyone occupying that office is at public servant and this is pension rules and that one says the compulsory requirement age for all grades in service including the customs service, it says ‘the compulsory retirement age of service shall be 60 years’.

“Hameed Ali is above 60, far above 60. So he is not qualified to hold the position of the comptroller-general of customs.”

On his part, Abaribe said Malami’s letter to the senate showed that he did not have an understanding of the laws.

“Our rules say in section 53 (5): ‘reference shall not be made in any matter in which a judicial decision is pending in such a way as might in such a way as in the opinion of the senate prejudice the interest of parties’, so no other person outside is important in this matter except the president of the senate,” the legislator told his colleagues.

“In the light I want to question the understanding of the attorney-general of the federation on the laws of Nigeria because by the AGF going ahead to write the clerk of the senate saying there is a judicial matter pending and therefore it is subjudice, it shows an abysmal lack of understanding of what our democracy is all about.”

The senate while condemning Malami’s letter, asked the NCS to out rightly cancel policy of “retrospective of import duties.”

The senators agreed that a “strong-worded” letter be written to the presidency to call Malami to order.

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The Minister made the call on Wednesday at the National Assembly, during an interactive session with members of the Senate Committee on Information and National Orientation, preparatory to the 2016 budget defence.

While responding to the sentiment expressed by a member of the Committee, Senator Ben Murray Bruce, on the effective utilisation of the public media in the fight against insurgency in the North- East, Mohammed said his ministry had already mounted a robust public sensitization campaign on the insurgency, with the active participation of the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria, but noted that the public media needed to be retooled to enhance its ability to drive the campaign.

“I must say that FRCN, NTA and VON, they have given me their schedules, at times we get as many as 16 slots within an hour to propagate these things. But I must admit that we have constraints. The FRCN in particular does not have the reach it used to have before and this is not surprising because for years, we have neglected the maintenance of the FRCN.

“VON is even worse because when the new station was built about two years ago, we were told that we need about N600 million annually to maintain it but what did we get? N120 million when they give us anything at all. So we have been cannibalizing and trying to make the best out of a bad situation,” he said.

Mohammed disclosed that the public media organs were directed to itemize the necessary requirements needed to prosecute the public sensitization campaign against the insurgency in order for the people to take ownership of the war and be security conscious.

“Let NTA, FRCN, VON, if only for the sake of the war in the North-East, tell us what they need to be able to prosecute this war. It’s going to be huge no doubt, but there is no way NTA, FRCN or VON will be able to meet this obligation when we have broken down transmitters and antennas,” he said.

Alhaji Mohammed also stressed the crucial role of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) in the campaign against insurgency and value re-reorientation.

“We see the NOA as a veritable vehicle not just in the war against insurgency but on all the wars against every ill including the war against corruption. We are working on this renewed campaign, which is going to be a much improved campaign on war against indiscipline, which we have tagged “Change Begins With Me”.

“This campaign will address all ills but this time around, we are not just targeting those at the top, they would have to lead by example but it’s going to be a bottom-up kind of campaign,” he said.

In his contribution, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Information and National Orientation, Eyinnaya Abaribe, suggested to the Executive Arm of Government to prepare and present an amended budget to capture all the necessary requirements of the public media organs to ensure success in the sensitization campaign against insurgency.

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