Akpabio asks Saraki, Dogara to resign or be booted out

Godswill Akpabio, senator representing Akwa Ibom north-west senatorial district, has asked Senate President Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the house of representatives, to resign.

Speaking to reporters after President Muhammadu Buhari presented the 2019 budget, the lawmaker said the two presiding officers have become minority leaders.

He said the All Progressives Congress (APC), the party which he joined in August, has majority lawmakers in both chambers of the national assembly.

Asked to comment on the inability of Saraki and Dogara to control the lawmakers who disrupted the president’s speech, Akpabio said: “Yes, they couldn’t talk today because they are minority leaders. They are not even supposed to talk in the first place. They should therefore do the needful and resign honourably or face being booted out of office,” he said.

Anti-Buhari lawmakers embarrassed the president while he was addressing a joint session of the national assembly on Wednesday.

They had accused him to telling lies and spreading propaganda.

But Akpabio described the presentation as a success, saying all that Buhari had for each region in the budget were amazing.

“It was a very good budget presentation. It captures all facets of our national life and expectations of many Nigerians,” he said.

He commended the president, adding that the budget would revive the decayed infrastructure in the country.

“The good thing about today’s budget presentation is that there is hope that there is going to be what I will call a rejuvenation in terms of infrastructural decay in Nigeria,” he said.

”I believe Nigerians are very proud today that they have a government, they have a president who is very determined to change not just the mental psyche of the Nigerian child but to change the face of infrastructure in the country.

“You would have noticed something about President Buhari quite unlike what happened in the past when we used to have so much of recurrent expenses sometimes up to 70 or 78 per cent.

”There was never a time under the PDP administration that we have more than 23 per cent on capital expenses, but look at the number of capital projects he rolled out today.

”That never happened before and that was why almost all the infrastructure died and we did not even have money for maintenance of infrastructure.”