President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has sparked a fresh controversy online over the 2024 budget presentation to the National Assembly.
News360 Info recalls that Tinubu had presented the budget to a joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday, during which he asked the lawmakers to pass the document in 30 days.
However, a lawmaker on the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) platform, Yusuf Shitu Galambi, accused President Bola Tinubu of deceiving the national assembly by presenting an empty sectoral allocation breakdown box.
The lawmaker noted that there is no doubt that Tinubu read his budget speech to them, but they did not see the budget statement in the box.
But in a statement on Friday titled “Stop the Misrepresentation of Facts: We Did Not Receive Empty 2024 Budget Box from President Tinubu,” Northern Caucus chairman in the House of Representatives, Ado Alhassan Doguwa, said the speculation is unfounded.
According to Doguwa, people are unaware that the President had submitted a flash drive of the whole budget before his presentation to the joint chambers.
He added that the report of Tinubu presenting an empty box was perpetrated by mischief makers and opposition members who would always criticise the government with or without reasonable cause.
Reacting to the controversy, the publisher of Daily Nigerian, Jaafar Jaafar, in a post via X on Friday, said he spoke to a senator after the president’s budget presentation.
According to Jaafar, the senator said President Tinubu came with an empty case to present the 2024 Budget at the National Assembly on Wednesday.
He wrote, “I spoke with a Nigerian senator last night to get the detail of sectoral allocations in Tinubu’s 2024 budget. To my surprise, he said the president came with an EMPTY case!
We sat yesterday to discuss the general principles of the budget but nobody got a copy. The truth is that the president came with an empty case.”
The latest development has sparked reactions from Nigeria.
@D_Ministar wrote: “Wow! I’m marble. Seriously though, transparency shuld be the cornerstone of our governance, yet for PBAT to arrive witout detailed sectoral allocations in the 2024 budget for the senate is disconcerting. Sha! It’ll be interesting to see hw this situation unfolds.”
@inersir wrote: “This is serious, could he actually be reading from an empty sheet?”
@Safeera_Abba1 wrote: “It’s hard to believe that a country’s budget would be presented with no actual details. I know that the budget is an important tool for setting priorities and allocating resources, so it’s strange that there wouldn’t be any information to discuss.”
@Nnekanwa1 wrote: “Bunch of Fraudulent people, blame Nigerians supporting this Wickedness against humanity because big tribe ,tribe is what is keeping Nigeria the way it is till today , Sickening”
@Nnekanwa1 wrote: “Bunch of Fraudulent people, blame Nigerians supporting this Wickedness against humanity because big tribe ,tribe is what is keeping Nigeria the way it is till today , Sickening”
@rabiuidris111 wrote: “It’s honestly unfortunate that today in Nigeria, we have got the president that can confidently come to the National Assembly with an empty case to present as 2024 budget? What kind of National Assembly are we having?”
@AbuMaheer75 wrote: “The Senate house is one of the numerous problems we are having in this country. Until the house is scraped, we’ll remain fixed.”
@ChibuzoUdolisa wrote: “And the same budget has already passed a second reading in the green chambers, the HoR, even without known details. This NASS will be worse that the usual state HoA standard that we know.”
