The budget padding scandal

SINCE the inauguration of the current 8th National Assembly, its leadership has not been short of controversies. It all started with the Senate whose leadership emerged by allegedly forging its own Rules with the alleged active collaboration of the immediate former Clerk of the National Assembly. Besides this particular forgery case that is already in court, the President of the Sen- ate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, also has another case to answer at the Code of Conduct Tribunal ( CCT) which borders on his failure to declare some of his assets on the Assets Declaration Form for public office holders.

All these while, Speaker Yakubu Dogora and his colleagues at the House of Representatives were portraying themselves be- fore the Nigerian public as being the true Representatives of the people. Few months ago, there was a sex scandal that allegedly involved three of the House members. And Speaker Dogora stoutly rose up in defense of those lawmakers, requesting their accuser, the American Ambassador to Nigeria, to prove his accusation against the lawmakers beyond all reasonable doubt by providing the video evidence. The envoy is yet to come forward with the video evidence as demanded by the House leadership and hence the scandal seems to have died a natural death.
And suddenly, from unlikely quarters came the “mother of all scandals”, budget padding which was not entirely new to Nigerians. But, what is unique about this particular scandal is that Speaker Yakubu Dogora and three other Principal Members of the House allegedly sought to corner for themselves about N40 billion out of the N100 billion earmarked for the whole National Assembly (NASS) members under the guise of some controversial constituency projects.

Instead of being remorseful for his actions, Speaker Dogora reportedly threw a bombshell when he was quoted as saying that budget-padding was not a crime known to the Nigerian Constitution using his background as a lawyer. And on that basis, he won’t resign his appointment or step-down from his position as the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Actually, it is too late for keen watchers of Nigerian politics to blame him. This is because Speaker Dogora has been part of the National Assembly whose members seem to have developed a thick skin to scandals and controversies. Public outcries against appropriating jumbo salaries/allowances to themselves have not moved them to change their ways all these years. Up till date, the budget details of the National Assembly are still shrouded in secrecy. And to Speaker Dogara, since he is not a first timer at the Lower House, he is already used to these scandals.
To him, this new scandal may be one of such that will soon fizzle out provided he can procure a controversial vote of confidence from the majority of his colleagues when the House resumes from its recess. In fact, the accuser, Abdulmumin Jibrin, the former Chairman of the House Commit- tee on Appropriation, has also alleged that $20,000 was being distributed by Speaker Dogara to the House members through one of his allies for this particular purpose.
And to underscore the gravity of the aleged offence, Hon. Jibrin chose to call it reckless insertions because of the fact that the act has gone overboard this time around to the extent that some ministries couldn’t recognize their own budget estimates when they were called upon to defend them.

Their Budget estimates had been completely transformed by these alleged reckless insertions which eventually caused untold delay in the passage of the 2016 budget. And it is so bad that up till date, some MDAs are yet to receive any form of cash backing for their capital votes even though they have been given approval to commence the procurement process for their respective capital projects.
That is to show the extent of damage that these reckless insertions had done. This has also compounded the problem of hunger in the land. The Executive arm may have its own share of the blame, but the main cause of the problem is traceable to the Legislature.
The Nigerian public is now watching the Presidency and the leadership of the ruling party whether they will allow the security agencies to do their jobs by allowing them to investigate the matter with a view to determining whether Hon. Jibrin is only crying foul, or indeed is right. And if the party decides to treat the scandal as an in-house issue, that will be bad for our democracy. Everyone is watching, especially for a government whose main cardinal point is fighting corruption.
One thing is clear: unless when called upon to give account of their stewardship, most of our public office holders do not feel any sense of moral burden to resign their appointments no matter the weight of the accusation levied against them, be it forg- ery, bribery, rape or even murder. Unless when the law is allowed to take its rightful course, our political officials usually do not feel obliged to resign as may be demanded by the public. And, so the Speaker’s stance on the scandal demonstrates the attitude of a typical Nigerian politician when con- fronted with a similar issue. Of course, this attitude has been part of our home-grown democracy unless the current Administra- tion of President Muhammed Buhari is not ready to allow this unfortunate trend to continue as part of “business as usual.”

Even before the present economic challenge, the National Assembly had been inundated with public outcry denouncing their opulent lifestyle of its members in the face of majority of Nigerian populace living in abject poverty and penury. Little did we know that budget padding is another illicit way of short-circuiting the nation’s treasury. The legislators seem to have no shame as long as they can secure their seats by all means. They have thrown caution to the winds.
But before this eventual divine intervention which may come as the last resort, we expect the government to play its constitutional role as the custodian of rules and order in a well organized society, and in the process, ensure the promotion of true values and culture in public service and the society at large.
Unless that is done, we may just be moving in circles. What our country needs is leadership by example.