‘National assembly not for robbers’ — protesters kick against alteration of Budget 2018

Some protesters on Tuesday stormed the national assembly over what they described as “illegal insertions” to the 2018 budget.

The protesters held placards with inscriptions: ‘Our lawmakers are inserting illegal projects in the budget’, ‘They now compel the use of their corrupt contractors’, ‘The national assembly is not for armed robbers.’

They accused lawmakers of working against the interest of the people.

Speaking with journalists, Ibrahim Garba Wala, national convener of Citizens Action to Take Back Nigeria (CATBAN), said Senate President Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the house of representatives representatives, are not fit to hold public office.

“We call on the president of the senate, Bukola Saraki and the speaker, Yakubu Dogara to immediately step down from their offices as they have shown that they lack the requisite credibility and moral capacity to hold the position of authority,” Wala said.

“It is clear that the insertions are huge, which also signifies the size of the criminality behind the intent to hijack the budget.”

On June 20, President Muhammadu Buhari signed the 2018 budget into law.

The president had lamented that the federal lawmakers made cuts to critical projects amounting to N347 billion.

“The national assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion,” he had said.

“As it is, some of these projects relate to matters that are the responsibility of the states and local governments, and for which the federal government should therefore not be unduly burdened.”