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Tinubu’s Spokesperson of Depravity, Has Wayward Lust for Power, Dogara Fires Back
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has replied the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, over his comments accusing the two presiding officers of the National Assembly of budget impropriety.
Mr Dogara accused the APC leader of having a “wayward lust for power” and promoting a “fascist agenda.”
The speaker, gave the response on Tuesday in a statement by his special adviser on media and public affairs, Turaki Hassan.
Mr Tinubu had alleged that Mr Dogara and Senate President Bukola Saraki have been padding Nigeria’s budget since 2015.
“Just look at the way Saraki, Dogara and their ilk hijacked the budget process these past four years,” Mr Tinubu had said in a statement released by Tunde Rahman, his spokesman.
“National budgets were delayed and distorted as these actors repeatedly sought to pad budgets with pet projects that would profit them. Even worse, they cut funds intended to prosper projects that would have benefitted the average person. After four years of their antics halting the progress of government, we should do all we can to prevent a repeat of their malign control of the National Assembly.”
Senate President Bukola Saraki on Monday replied Mr Tinubu. He said it is “unfortunate” that after 22 months in the legislature, Mr Tinubu does “not have a better understanding of how the legislature works”.
“Since we have taken it for granted that Tinubu’s attack on Saraki every three months (quarterly) will come as expected, we would just have ignored his statement but for the fact that it was filled with untruth, fallacies and misrepresentations,” Mr Saraki’s office said. “It is unfortunate that a man like Tinubu who had been in the Senate (though for 22 months and under a military regime) should not have a better understanding of how the legislature works.”
Mr Dogara, in his reaction, asked Mr Tinubu to provide evidence to back his allegations.
“we advise Asiwaju Tinubu to be circumspect in his use of language. In this case, he spoke as a spokesperson of depravity,” Mr Dogara said.
“Our reaction must, therefore, be seen as a provoked counter-punch. Anyone can descend into the gutter if he so wishes but no one has a monopoly of gutter language.”
“We won’t run an adult day care centre anymore on matters like this,” he added.
Mr Dogara restated his view that the National Assembly “is not a rubber stamp parliament” and therefore “reserves the right, working cooperatively with the Executive to interrogate projects unilaterally inserted by the Executive branch without the input of or consultation with Parliament.”
He also queried Mr Tinubu’s academic qualifications, saying: “The legislature cannot be accused of padding a budget it has unquestionable constitutional power to review. The budget is a law and the Executive does not make laws.”
“Therefore, it’s only the ignorant and those who hold dubious academic certificates that say the maker of a document has padded the document that only he can constitutionally make.
“In the words of his lordship, Hon Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High court, in suitNo.FHC/ABJ/CS/259/2014 delivered on March 9, 2016, ‘the National Assembly was not created by drafters of the Constitution and imbued with the powers to receive ‘budget estimates’ which the first defendant is constitutionally empowered to prepare and lay before it, as a rubber stamp parliament.”
Read Mr Dogara’s full statement below.
- Tinubu pursuing facist agenda to control all levers of power in Nigeria- Speaker Dogara
- Only the ignorant with dubious academic certificates will say the maker of a document has padded the document that only he can constitutionally make
We have noted the statement issued on April 21, 2019 by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu wherein he stated his reasons for sponsoring or supporting some aspirants to various leadership positions in the forthcoming 9th Assembly. Ordinarily, this would not have elicited any response from His Excellency, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt Hon Yakubu Dogara, as Asiwaju is entitled to sponsor those he believes will have no choice but answer to his dog whistles anytime he blows same in his capacity as the self acclaimed National Leader of his party.
2. If Asiwaju had confined his intervention to stubborn facts, this response would not have been necessary. He, however, used the opportunity to manufacture falsehoods and paint a non-existing picture of the stewardship of Mr Speaker and the work of the 8th House of Representatives under his watch. It is therefore, incumbent on us to set the records straight for posterity.
3. Asiwaju Tinubu accused the leadership of the National Assembly of stymieing “the APC legislative initiatives while attempting to hoist noxious reactionary and self interested legislation on the nation”. He said further: “Just look at the way Saraki and Dogara and their ilk hijacked the Budget Process these past four years. National budgets were delayed and distorted as these actors repeatedly sought to pad budgets with pet projects that would profit them”. He continued, “Even worse, they cut funds intended to prosper projects that would have benefited the average person. After four years of their antics halting the progress of government, we should do all we can to prevent a repeat of their malign control of the National Assembly”. He generously used the usual unexplained words like installing a progressive leadership and so on.
4. We do not expect Asiwaju Tinubu to dwell on brazen mendacity, much less murder facts and decorum in his rabid bid to justify his patently clear facist agenda of controlling all levers of power in Nigeria. Asiwaju Tinubu’s nocturnal agenda has no parallel in the history of any democracy and it is more loathsome when he throws caution to the winds and maligns government officials who are doing a yeoman’s job of stabilising the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, even in spite of political differences.
5. It is on record that the Rt. Hon. Speaker has done more to stabilize this government more than Asiwaju Tinubu and his ilk whose stock in trade is scheming, manipulation and subversion especially when they feel they cannot be caught. When the history of Buhari’s administration is written by those who know the truth of what really transpired in the last four years, Asiwaju’s pretentious loyalty to President Buhari will then be exposed. We won’t say more but no matter how long it may last, the truth will one day overtake lies. Perhaps, Asiwaju is still bitter about the leadership contest for Speakership of the 8th Assembly, even though the actors have moved on culminating in Speaker Dogara magnanimously facilitating the appointment of his opponent in the race and Tinubu’s protege as House Majority leader.
6. The chief cause of delay in enacting the budget is the persistent refusal or neglect of the Executive to present it in good time.
For the records, in the last four years, there was no urgency or plan by the Executive to achieve a January to December budget cycle. For the avoidance of doubt, we will show the dates the Budget estimates were submitted by the Executive in the last four years below.
– 2016 Budget was submitted on December 22, 2015, exactly nine days to the end of the year.
– 2017 Budget submitted on December 14,2016, just 17 days to the end of the year.
– 2018 Budget was presented on November 7, 2017, the earliest even though it also fell short of the 90 days stipulated by the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
– 2019 budget was presented on December 19, 2018 exactly 12 days to the end of the year.
As if the late or delayed submission of budget estimates wasn’t enough, in most cases, Ministers and heads of agencies contributed to the so-called delay by consistently refusing to appear before National Assembly Standing Committees to defend their budget proposals in line with the provision of the Law. At some point, the leadership of the National Assembly had to take up the issue with the President who advised his Ministers to honour legislative invitations to defend their budgets.
7. What Nigerians don’t know is that the Executive, through the various Ministries, continued to propose additional projects to be included in the 2018 budget even as at April and May of 2018 which further delayed the passage of the 2018 budget. These were communicated officially and if anyone is in doubt, we will exhibit the letters with the dates they were written and received. In any case, the National Assembly inserted a clause in the Appropriation Bill consistent with S.318 of the Constitution which allowed the Budget to last for 12 months after Mr President’s Assent. This enabled the Executive to spend more of the capital component of the Budget as it still had 12 months protected by law.
8. As an activist legislature, the National Assembly effected an amendment to S. 81(1) of the Constitution to compel Mr President to present the Budget estimates not later than 90 days to the end of a financial year in order to solve this problem but unfortunately, very unfortunately, Mr President declined assent to the bill which was passed by both the National Assembly and over 2/3rds of the State Assemblies.
9. The National Assembly made a further attempt to make the Budget process much better by improving the institutional capacity of the Parliament to process and pass National budgets by passing the National Assembly Budget and Research Office (NABRO) Establishment Bill into law. It was loosely modelled after the American Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Again, Mr President declined assent to the Bill.
10. It is important to emphasize that the National Assembly is not a Rubber Stamp Parliament and reserves the right, working cooperatively with the Executive to interrogate projects unilaterally inserted by the Executive branch without the input of or consultation with Parliament. The legislature cannot be accused of padding a Budget it has unquestionable constitutional power to review. The Budget is a law and the Executive does not make laws. Therefore, it’s only the ignorant and those who hold dubious academic certificates that say the maker of a document has padded the document that only he can constitutionally make. In the words of his lordship, Hon Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High court, in suit No.FHC/ABJ/CS/259/2014 delivered on March 9, 2016, “the National Assembly was not created by drafters of the Constitution and imbued with the powers to receive ‘budget estimates’ which the first defendant is constitutionally empowered to prepare and lay before it, as a rubber stamp parliament. The whole essence of the budget estimates being required to be laid before Parliament is to enable it, being the Assembly of the representatives of the people, to debate the said budget proposals and to make its own well informed legislative inputs into it.”
11. The parliamentarians are representatives of the Nigerian people and you don’t expect them to rubber stamp budgets that are heavily skewed and lopsided against most sections of the country. It is their responsibility to ensure equitable and even distribution of capital projects across all the nooks and crannies of the country, if the Executive fails to do so. In any case, it is false to state that legislative intervention in the Budget Process is to benefit the legislators and not their constituencies. We challenge Asiwaju Tinubu to prove otherwise. He should also show in what way the 8th Assembly acted differently from other Assemblies of the past to warrant the kind of language used. In any case, all the aspirants to the Senate Presidency and Speakership he is sponsoring are majority leaders in the 8th Assembly and took part in the Budget Process that he made the chief basis of his crude attack. This proves beyond doubt the hypocrisy of Asiwaju’s stated reasons for supporting his candidates. He should find better reasons other than the lies being peddled about the Budget and obstructing government business. Asiwaju shouldn’t take better informed Nigerians for fools. Otherwise, when he sought to take control of the 8th Senate and 8th House in 2015, was it because of any Budget Saraki and Dogara had delayed or pet projects they had inserted into any Budget before 2015? Asiwaju must come clean on this matter. He should let Nigerians know why he wants to install both the Senate President, the Speaker and leadership of the 9th Assembly. He may yet win the support of some of them if he comes clean on this matter.
12. The 8th National Assembly is on record to have supported Mr President’s requests on critical issues of governance. We backed him by Resolution on the issue of fuel subsidy, we backed him on the National Minimum wage, even though we were more sympathetic to workers’ rights. In security matters, we never cut any proposal from Mr President save our refusal to rubber stamp a clear constitutional overreach of spending $1 billion in arms purchase without appropriation. We have passed more Bills than any Assembly before us including Bills that are helping the government improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria, and there were times we passed Bills within 2 legislative days. Is Tinubu genuinely ignorant of all these?
13. We challenge Asiwaju Tinubu to list out the Bills he claimed were not passed by the National Assembly. The oil and gas or petroleum sector is the most important and critical sector of our economy which accounts for over 70 percent of our earnings, the Executive didn’t forward a single Bill to the National Assembly to reform and reposition the sector in the last four years even when repeatedly urged to do so by Mr Speaker in his first year in office. The lawmakers waited in vain and had to take the bold initiative of crafting a Bill – Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PGIB) among others, passed it in record time and transmitted same to Mr President for assent. This Bill was vetoed without an alternative Legal framework proposed by the Executive. Did Asiwaju miss this also?
14. Asiwaju Tinubu should mention the so-called bills the Executive sent to the National Assembly and were delayed to show he is a man of honour or forever keep his peace.
Could someone also challenge Asiwaju to list all the “ noxious reactionary and self interested legislation on the nation”? Can he name the bills that are reactionary and not in the national interest? Is this how wayward lust for power blinds the reasoning of people we should ordinarily respect? Is it not most unfair, unpatriotic and wicked for Asiwaju Tinubu to have resorted to factoids in promoting his known fascist agenda which he mistakenly thinks he is keeping secret.
15. Finally, we advise Asiwaju Tinubu to be circumspect in his use of language. In this case, he spoke as a spokesperson of depravity. Our reaction must therefore be seen as a provoked counter-punch. Any one can descend into the gutter if he so wishes but no one has a monopoly of gutter language. We won’t run an adult day care centre anymore on matters like this.
Premium Times
Cameroon ’s top court on Monday declared incumbent Paul Biya, the world’s oldest president, the winner of the Oct. 12 election. Clashes with security forces left at least four protesters dead ahead of the announcement as opposition supporters rallied to demand credible results.
Biya, 92, has led the central African nation since 1982. The Constitutional Council said he received 53.66% of votes while former ally-turned-challenger Issa Tchiroma Bakary got 35.19%. The turnout was 57.7%.
In a social media post after the declaration, Tchiroma said that there was gunfire directed at civilians and two people were shot dead in his hometown in Garoua.
He said: “Toll of their attack: two dead. I wonder what will be said this time? Shooting point-blank at your own brothers — I can’t help but wonder if you’re mercenaries. Kill me if you want, but I will liberate this country by any means necessary. What blatant impunity.”
The four protesters were shot dead in Douala, the economic capital, on Sunday, as hundreds of people stormed streets in several cities. Tchiroma had claimed victory days before Monday’s announcement, citing results he said were collated by his party. Biya dismissed the claim.
According to Samuel Dieudonne Ivaha Diboua, governor of the Littoral Region that includes Douala, several members of the security forces were injured by protesters. He said at least 105 protesters were arrested.
Dozens of opposition supporters, activists and leaders have been arrested in recent days. Paul Atanga Nji, minister of territorial administration, said on Saturday the government arrested several people plotting violent attacks.
One protester, Oumarou Bouba, a 27-year-old trader in Maroua, said: “I am ready to stake my life to defend my vote. I voted for Tchiroma because I want change.”
Following the announcement of the results, Sani Aladji, a 28-year-old who works in a hotel in Maroua, said: “Nothing will change. I expected that Issa Tchiroma would bring change, which is why I voted for him. There’s rampant corruption under Biya’s regime. We are tired of that. We don’t have roads.”
Biya has ruled Cameroon longer than most of its citizens have been alive. Over 70% of the country’s almost 30 million population is below 35. The election has been the latest dramatic example of tension between Africa’s youth and the continent’s many aging leaders.
He first came to power in 1982 following the resignation of Cameroon’s first president and has ruled the country since then, later benefiting from a constitutional amendment that abolished term limits.
Critics accuse Biya of leading Cameroon from a period of relative stability into one of crisis and conflict. The country in recent years has faced attacks by Boko Haram militants in the north and a secessionist insurgency in the country’s English-speaking North West and South West regions.
That crisis, triggered by the government’s attempts to impose French in English-speaking schools and courts, has killed nearly 7,000 people, displaced more than one million more internally and sent thousands fleeing to neighboring Nigeria.
Despite Cameroon being an oil-producing country that is experiencing modest economic growth, young people say the benefits have not trickled down beyond the elites. According to World Bank data, the unemployment rate stands at 3.5%, but 57% of the labor force aged 18 to 35 works in informal employment.
“Many young people across the country and in the diaspora had hoped for change, but that their hopes have been dashed. It feels like a missed opportunity,” said Dr Emile Sunjo, a senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Buea. “Cameroon could potentially slide into anarchy.”
Source: AP
There was mild drama in court on Monday as detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, declined opening his defence against the seven-count terrorism-related charge the Federal Government preferred against him, saying categorically that there’s “no case against me”.
Kanu, who elected to defend himself after he disengaged his team of lawyers, adduced reasons before the Federal High Court in Abuja, why he would not open his defence to the charge.
Addressing the court from the dock, the IPOB leader maintained that after going through the case file, he discovered that there is no valid charge to warrant his defence.
He contended that since he had been subjected to an unlawful trial based on an invalid charge, there would be no need for him to offer any explanations or defend himself through the evidence of witnesses.
“Join me in praising God. I have gone through my case file, and there is no charge against me,” he started.
“There is no extant law in this country upon which the prosecution can predicate the charges against me. If there’s any, let my Lord read it out to me.
“So, I should not enter any defence in a charge that does not exist under any law in Nigeria. I urge you to release me today or grant me bail.”
Consequently, he shelved his initial request for the court to issue summons to compel certain persons to appear as his witnesses in the case.
Kanu, who has been in detention since 2021, had in a motion he personally signed and filed before the court, named several individuals that included serving Governors, Ministers, ex-Governors and Security Chiefs, among the 23 persons he intends to produce as his witnesses.
Describing them as vital and compellable witnesses in his case, Kanu, urged the court to grant him a 90-day period to enable him to open and conclude his defence.
He argued that expanding the initial six-day period the court gave for him to conclude his defence has become necessary in view of the number and status of the witnesses he intends to produce to give evidence in the case.
Among the proposed witnesses in the principal list he submitted before the court, included the Governor of Imo state, Hope Uzodimma; that of Lagos state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu; Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike; the immediate past Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; as well as a former Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Tukur Buratai (rtd).
Others are the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi; the immediate past Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu; a former Minister of Defence, Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (rtd); immediate past former Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, NIA, Ahmed Rufai Abubakar; as well as the former Director-General of the Department of State Services, DSS, Yusuf Bichi.
In the motion dated October 21 and marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/383/2015, Kanu equally hinted that he would call other persons whose names were not on the list he submitted.
However, he ditched the plan on Monday, a development that led the court to adjourn the matter till November 4, 5 and 6 for the adoption of final written addresses.
Before the case was adjourned however, trial Justice James Omotosho implored the IPOB leader to consult experts in criminal law to explain the consequences of his decision.
It will be recalled that the court had earlier rejected a no-case-submission that Kanu filed to be discharged and acquitted.
The court dismissed his contention that the totality of evidence the prosecution tendered in the matter failed to establish a prima facie case against him.
Kanu argued that the five witnesses FG brought to testify before the court failed to prove that he committed any offence that is known to law.
Former US Vice President Kamala Harris said in a British television interview previewed Saturday that she may “possibly” run again to be president.
Harris, who replaced Joe Biden as the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate but lost to Donald Trump, told the BBC that she had not yet decided whether to make another White House bid.
But the 61-year-old insisted she was “not done” in American politics and that her young grandnieces would see a female president in the Oval Office “in their lifetime, for sure”.
“I have lived my entire career a life of service, and it’s in my bones, and there are many ways to serve,” Harris told the British broadcaster in an interview set to air in full on Sunday.
“I’ve not decided yet what I will do in the future, beyond what I am doing right now.”
The comments are the strongest hint yet that Harris could attempt to be the Democratic Party nominee for the 2028 election.
The interview follows the release of her memoir last month in which she argued it had been “recklessness” to let Biden run for a second term as president.
She also accused his White House team of failing to support her while she was his deputy, and at times of actively hindering her.
