Legislative Rascality: PDP lawmakers told me they booed Buhari because he didn’t send bribe before 2019 Budget, Hon. Gudaji Kazaure exposes erring colleagues
Against the reason provided Thursday by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) House of Representatives Member representing Rivers State, Mr. Kingsley Chinda that his lawmakers of his party in the National Assembly interrupted President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech while presenting his 2019 budget proposals on Wednesday because he was not fair to all Nigerian in implementation of 2018 budget, the real reason has come out according to another colleague who spoke to national assembly correspondents.
Exposing the erring lawmakers was Honourable Muhammed Gudaji Kazaure (APC, Jigawa State.
Kazaure’s new revelation brings to fore the claims by former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of Economy under the PDP administration of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who said claimed how she gave N72 billion to National Assembly lawmakers as bribe before they could pass the 2015 national budget.
The claims by Okonjo-Iweala, much devastating as they are, have not been refuted long after they her revelation, which, according to observers of events as they unfold, lays credence to Honourable Muhammed Gudaji Kazaure’s new revelation.
He told pressmen pointblank on Thursday that his PDP colleagues who did what they did told him that the reason they interrupted the President was because he did not bring them anything.
Honourable Kazaure said: “They (governments of the past) normally bribed the members before they brought the budget. That is what the PDP members know and that was the experience before. The President is not corrupt. He cannot send us money here. That is why they are shouting. Anybody who tells you anything, this is the reason.
“The President never bribed PDP members. That is why they are shouting because they are fighting the progress. Since last two weeks they have been holding meetings, meetings, meetings to stop Mr. President from presenting his budget.
“What we experience is, they don’t want this budget to be laid. They want to create problem so that the budget will not be laid.
“In 2015, they were bribed before the budget was sent here. But this Mr. President cannot bribe them. That is why they are shouting. And if you look at it, because the man is a man of God and a man of integrity, we overpowered them and shut them down!
“So, this is what happened and this is really the reality. They are expecting the President to send them bribe and he didn’t send them. That is the reason.
“Confronted by National Assembly correspondents with question that he was laying accusation, he put it back to the journalists that what he said was not an accusation but the truth and nothing but the truth.
“He said: “Many of them, my colleagues are asking me; your President never bring anything o. that is why we are shouting o. that is what they are telling me. It is not accusation. It is reality.”
“Asked if the leadership was aware of what he was saying about expectation of colleagues to be bribed, Kazaure said: “Whether they are aware or not, I am telling you the reality that majority of the members are telling me that ‘your President never bring something o, that is why we are shouting o,” he said.
