‘He enjoys support across parties’ — group asks APC to back Betara for speaker

A group known as Movement for Effective Legislature and Sustainable Democracy in Nigeria (MELSDN) has asked the All Progressives Congress (APC) to nominate Muktar Betara, a member of the house, for the position of speaker of the 10th assembly.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Williams Martins, national coordinator of the group, asked the ruling party to “take advantage of the general acceptability” of the lawmaker and nominate him.

The group said, “polls conducted nationwide reveal that Betara is the only person who enjoys a thick clout of respect, credibility and general acceptability across the members-elect of the different parties”.

“As the race for the speakership of the 10th house of representatives reaches its defining moments, questions have continued to rage regarding the suitability of those who have thrown their hats into the ring,” the statement reads.

“And while all those who have expressed interest in the coveted position have legal rights to such claims, one man has continued to stand out in terms of the impacts his current role in the outgoing assembly has had on the socio-economic resilience of Nigeria. He is no other than Muktar Aliyu Betara.”

‘INSTRUMENTAL TO JAN TO DEC BUDGET CIRCLE’

The group said Betara, who chairs the committee on appropriation, has been instrumental in the timely passage of the annual budget to maintain the January to December circle for four years.

“With specific reference to the PDP-led governments, and the first part of the APC government until 2019, Nigeria has had a staggered budget cycle fraught with intra and inter-agency and institutional rancour or rivalry which adversely affected the timing of budget presentation, passage and implementation,” the group said.

“One of the resultant effects was the commencement of Nigeria’s fiscal calendar from June of a given year, just as there was no certainty in the commencement of a subsequent fiscal year.

“But to most avid followers and observers of legislative activities in the last four years, that story changed when the current 9th assembly led by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan and the house of representatives speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, engineered a paradigm shift from the abnormality of commencing annual budget implementation in any month other than January and ending on 31st of December of the same year.

“While the objective of returning the nation’s budget cycle to its normal January to December course was a key campaign promise and a legislative agenda of the Gbajabiamila leadership, that all-important objective couldn’t have materialised if not for the legislative competence, patriotism, courage and commitment to nation-building of Muktar Aliyu Betara who became the chairman of the house committee on appropriation.

“His (Betara) army of friends across party lines are unrivalled in the legislature and can serve as a veritable tool in achieving bipartisan consensus, thereby helping the incoming administration to seamlessly push its policies and programmes through the legislature.”

Betara is a member of the APC representing Biu/Kwaya Kusar/Bayo/Shani federal constituency of Borno.