Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has described the
controversial 2016 Budget of the Federal Government as a confirmation
that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Mohammadu
Buhari were never prepared for governance, saying; "if a government
cannot prepare a common budget, it should just be concluded that those
in the government never prepared for governance and such a government
may not be able to achieve anything."
He said padding of the budget with strange figures, which are being
denied by Ministers was a clear intention to steal, adding that; "What
those who prepared the budget did was to steal in advance. It is clear
advance fraud and be it civil servants, political appointees or
consultants, those responsible for this national embarrassment must be
fished out and prosecuted."
According to a statement issued on Tuesday by his Special Assistant on
Pubic Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, the governor said;
"With almost everyone disowning provisions in the budget, the latest
being the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed,
the most honourable thing to do is for President Buhari to withdraw
the budget formally and put an end to this national shame that the
budget has become."
The governor, who commended the National Assembly for suspending the
budget passage, said he was highly embarrassed when he saw the BBC
Africa's tweet that our Minister of Heath said "rats invaded Nigeria
Budget documents and smuggled foreign items."
The statement read; "On Wednesday, Minister of Information and
Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed openly disowned the N398 million being
part of the budget estimates by his ministry meant for the purchase of
computers. The Minister who was reacting to questions on the N230
million and N168 million voted for the purchase of computers for the
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and the Film and Video Censors Board, the
minister said he was not aware.
"To worsen the situation, an official of the ministry of information
said that only N5 million was proposed for the item in the original
budget of the Film and Video Censors Board. How then did N5 million
grew to N398 million?
"Before the Wednesday denial by Lai Mohammed, the Health Minister,
Isaac Adewole, had said that the proposal drawn up by the ministry
and submitted to the budget office had been doctored and that
'foreign' appropriations, different from what was submitted, had been
sneaked in as the height of national embarrassment.
"Also, we are now being told that the sum of N10 billion which was
questionably smuggled into the budget of the Ministry of Education for
an allegedly questionable subhead was typographical error, and one
wonders how N10 billion could have been included in a national budget
through typo error.
"Denials, typo errors, existence of Budget Mafia in the Presidency,
N3.87 billion allocated for capital projects at the State House Clinic
meant for the President, Vice President and their families alone and
error in the date on the letter with which the President presented the
corrected version of the budget, among other shocking discoveries, the
reality of an unprepared people in government is no doubt staring
Nigerians in the face.
"In saner climes, the President would have openly admitted to the
people that he made mistakes, apologise and withdraw the budget.
"It is however not too late for this honourable path to be followed by
the President. He should realise that he is human and capable of
committing errors. He should therefore admit that his first budget was
full of errors, withdraw the budget formally from the National
Assembly and prepare another budget.
"Most importantly, Nigerians must know those who caused this national
embarrassment. They must be fished out and prosecuted."
Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE
Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner
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