Lawan: Nigeria benefiting from cordial relationship between executive and legislature

Senate President Ahmad Lawan says the country is benefiting from the cordial relationship between the executive and the legislative arm of government.

Speaking with journalists on Friday after President Muhammadu Buhari signed the 2022 appropriation into law, Lawan said the legislature and the executive arms of government played roles in passing the bill into law.

“The secret is cooperation, partnership, synergy, and that understanding and mutual respect,” the senate president said.

“Nigeria is benefiting from that kind of relationship. So that is what, in my judgment and opinion works for us, to be passing the budget at the time, that will always feel is the appropriate time before the end of the year.

“Mr. President, congratulations to him for signing the 2022 appropriation bill today, even though today is the last day of the year. But we have achieved that very significant important date of signing before the end of the year.

“The reality is what I have observed, the ability of the federal government to have his budget passed and signed before the end of the year, has made so many states to also work towards achieving that.”

Lawan said the issues raised by the president on how the budget was appropriated are not a “worrisome development for us”.

“This is based on judgments when we asked for more resources coming from the independent sources, especially from the government owned enterprises of about N400 to N500 billion because we believe that these government owned enterprises should contribute even much more,” he said.

“In fact, I hold the opinion that they should have contributed about a trillion, at least not N500 billion or so.”