The Nigerian Senate in a statement on Monday told the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi to tender a public apology over his claim that the National Assembly removed the Lagos-Calabar rail project from the 2016 budget, otherwise he should resign.
The Senate also slammed the Presidency, saying it should “stop engaging in surreptitious campaigns of calumny against it in order to cover up its serial errors”.
This is contained in the statement by the chairman, senate committee on media and public affairs Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi.
He said: “While the executive is mandated to prepare and lay before the national assembly a proposed budget detailing projects to be executed, it should be made clear that the responsibility and power of appropriation lies with the national assembly.
“If the presidency expects us to return the budget proposal to them without any adjustments, then some people must be living in a different era and probably have not come to terms with democracy.
“We make bold to say, however, that the said Lagos-Calabar rail project was not included in the budget proposal presented to the national assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari and we challenge anyone who has any evidence to the contrary to present such to Nigerians.
“Since the beginning of the 2016 budget process, it is clear that the national assembly has suffered all manners of falsehood, deliberate distortion of facts, and outright blackmail, deliberately aimed at poisoning the minds of the people against the institution of the national assembly.
“We have endured this with equanimity in the overall interest of Nigerians. Even when the original submission was surreptitiously swapped and we ended up having two versions of the budget, which was almost incomprehensible and heavily padded in a manner that betrays lack of coordination and gross incompetence, we refused to play to the gallery and instead helped the executive to manage the hugely embarrassing situation it has brought upon itself; but enough is enough.
“This latest antics of this particular minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, is reckless, uncalled for and dangerously divisive. Apart from setting the people of the southern part of the country against their northern compatriots, it potentially sets the people against their lawmakers from the concerned constituencies and sets the lawmakers against themselves.
“This manner of reprehensible mischief has no place in a democracy. We hereby demand from Mr. Amaechi a publicly tendered apology if he is not able to show evidence that the Lagos-Calabar road project was included in the budget. Otherwise, he should resign forthwith.
“Finally, by the provision of Section 81 (4) (a) and (b) of the constitution, the President is allowed to sign the budget and kick-start the implementation of the other areas that constitute over 90 percent of the budget where there is agreement between both arms, even as we engage ourselves to resolve the contentious areas, if there were any. We therefore maintain that even this contrived discrepancies are not sufficient excuse not to sign the budget into law.
“We therefore urge President Buhari to sign the 2016 budget without any further delay. For every additional day that the president withholds his assent from the bill, the hardship in the land, which is already becoming intolerable for the masses of our people gets even more complicated. Certainly, as primary representatives of the people we shall not vacate our responsibility and watch the people continue to suffer unduly.”
Earlier, the Presidency had cried foul that the national assembly removed the provision made for the Calabar-Lagos Coastal Railway in the 2016 budget, forcing President Buhari to summon the senate president, Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara to shed light into the missing document.
Similarly, the House of Representatives on Monday accused the executive of causing disaffection over the 2016 budget, saying it was the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi that attempted to pad the bill.
Speaking with newsmen in Abuja, the Chairman of the House’s Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Rep. Abdulrazak Namdas, said majority of the stories in the media were “mere propaganda”.
Stating that the media reports were meant to cause disaffection between the National Assembly and a section of the country, he said the Lagos-Calabar rail project was never included in the budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The item was brought for inclusion in the budget by Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, but was not included in the budget because only the President is allowed to present the budget before the National Assembly,” Namdas said. According to him, this was an attempt at padding the budget.
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