Drain Pipes Episode 1: The National Assembly (As Promised)
Remember, at the beginning of the @MBuhari administration, the first budget ever submitted was hit by the allegation of padding on both the two houses of assemblies. The House of @HouseNGR and The @NGRSenate.
Thread.
Remember, at the beginning of the @MBuhari administration, the first budget ever submitted was hit by the allegation of padding on both the two houses of assemblies. The House of @HouseNGR and The @NGRSenate.
Thread.
This doesn’t start with the @APCNigeria Govt. It has been the new normal in our national assemblies since the inception of our democracy in 1999. In addition to the huge budget allocated to them, nearly 25% of our national budget, padding is one of the ways they get more money.
How it is done: Padding will be made on the national budget for ministries, department, & agencies. The Assembly members, through their patronage, lobby for the appointment of the willing person(s) to the designated MDA, then appoint themselves chairmanship of various committees,
The committees were constitutionally charged with oversight functions on the activities of the MDA, part of this is monitoring the collections of the padded amount through the award of padded contracts across the system until it comes back to the source, the assembly members.
That is why the most lucrative position in the Nigerian Political Space is to occupy a seat in the two assembly chambers. This has been going on under the @OfficialPDPNig led FG for 16 years silently, undiscovered, uncontested and in fact, accepted as the right for the members.
The current administration changed the whole scenario. For the first time, through the diligence of President @MBuhari with the support of some of the patriotic assemblymen, this issue was now in the public domain. We then had a new term in Nigeria's political space, padding.
Recalled that padding was the discussion point in Nigeria in 2016 upward. I discovered that the current struggle between the @APCNigeria led the federal government & the national assemblies that led to the defection of principal members to @OfficialPDPNig have origin from padding
The President @MBuhari has on many occasions made reference to the fact that in his entire public life, he had never heard the word padding and he worked assiduously against it, sometimes having a lot of back and forth on a passage of the budget. That was a press to reset button.
Thus, some principal members of the national assembly were moving around the country, painting Pres. @MBuhari black & calling themselves heroes & saviors of democracy when in actual fact, the drain pipes that corruptly enrich them was sealed. That was the whole issue they had.
I sincerely think that allowing the coming back of the @OfficialPDPNig is a move back to the new normal of open and unceasing draining of our commonwealth, at the detriment of many for the benefit of few. The Nigerian Youth's future is better protected with the new system we have
I will rather allow the @APCNigeria led F.G under the leadership of @MBuhari & @ProfOsinbajo to continue blocking those drain pipes and channel most of the monies to infrastructure investment, as currently been done. It is the right track.
Episode 1 ends.
Episode 2 tomorrow.
Episode 1 ends.
Episode 2 tomorrow.
