*Session rowdiness best of PDP – Nigerians
The PDP law maker said, “Today he (President Buhari) told Nigerians that they have about N800 billion so far for capital expenditures as against N6.4 trillion, if you calculate that, it will give you about 16 percent. What it means is that they have achieved just 16 percent release of capital expenditures. The economy cannot move with that kind of practice,” Chinda said without stating what level of capital releases were made by his party each fiscal year of its 16 years in government before it was booted out of office by Nigerians on grounds of impunity, corruption and insecurity in 2015.
As Wednesday’s show of shame by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)lawmakers at the presentation of 2019 budget proposal by President MuhammaduBuhari continues to draw heavy criticisms against the opposition partystruggling to come back to power in 2019, one of the PDP lawmakers who partookin the “shameful act” described by an group as national disgrace, Hon. Kingsley Ogundu Chinda, PDP member representating Obio/Akpor Federal Constituency, Rivers State, in the House of Representatives,has given themain reason he and his colleagues did it.
Speaking to the press, Chinda said one of the main reasons the lawmakers what they did was because of the “insincerity” of the presidency during the implementation of previous budgets.
“The presidency has not been fair to Nigerians when it comes to budget and most often they use that to blame the legislature.
“One example is, when it comes to capital releases, you will find out that they have performed very poorly.”
The PDP lawmaker, who did not mention the role of its party and legislature to how Nigeria got to the point where government in the last three years had to struggle to manage to get money to fund its budget plans, said having performed so poorly, the president “still talks about how to turn the economy around when they have not released capital expenditures, what magic are they going to do?”
He said, “Today he told Nigerians that they have about N800 billion so far for capital expenditures as against N6.4 trillion, if you calculate that, it will give you about 16 percent.
“What it means is that they have achieved just 16 percent release of capital expenditures.”
He added that during their oversight, they discovered from some government agencies that only eight percent of their 2018 budget was released.
“The economy cannot move with that kind of practice,” Chinda said without stating what level of capital releases were made by his party each fiscal year of its 16 years in government before it was booted out of office by Nigerians on grounds of impunity, corruption and insecurity in 2015.
He frowned at what he described as the executive disobedience to the Constitution ”which placed some agencies under the first line charge”.
He also said the protest was not ‘planned’.
“The protest was not planned, it was spontaneous. This morning, people just felt there was a need for it,” he said.
He said they had the ‘support’ of their colleagues from the ruling APC.
“It is not just about PDP lawmakers, some of the APC lawmakers felt that because they belonged to the same political party with the president, it will not be tidy for them to come to the open.
“They are actually not happy with what is going on in the system,” he added.
In the meantime, APC and other Nigerians have continued to condemn the PDP for the rowdiness that characterized the budget presentation.
Others described the shameful act as the best of PDP as contribution to the struggle for national restoration.
The DEFENDER reports that President Muhammadu Buhari was interrupted and booed intermittently, though not significantly, by some PDP lawmakers while addressing the joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday.
The actions threw the parliament into a rowdy session while the president presented the 2019 Appropriation Bill before the National Assembly.
Lawmakers from different political divides booed and cheered the president as he explained the budget details.
President Buhari, whose loyalists’ applauses in the Assembly swallowed the boo by the PDP erring PDP lawmakers, still took notice of the attitude of the opposition members and stopped a while to caution them like teacher cautions his pupils in primary school classroom. He responded to the PDP lawmakers: ”The world is watching us and we are supposed to be above this,” he said calmly and then continued his speech where he proposed N8.83 trillion for 2019.
