Dogara Blasts El-Rufai, Says Governor Undermining Buhari, National Assembly

Dogara

The war of words between the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara and Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasiru el-Rufai has continued unabated as the speaker yesterday accused the governor of undermining the parliament and President Muhammadu Buhari.

Recall El-Rufai had, two days ago, published his security votes in reaction to a challenge from the speaker.


But, in a reaction yesterday, Dogara described the action of the governor in making the documents public many days after the encounter as ‘cheap blackmail’ and advised him to devote his time to governing the state.

Dogara, who spoke through the spokesman of the House, Hon. Abdulrazaq Namdas, at a press briefing said: “We wish to advise el-Rufai to concentrate his efforts in governing Kaduna State and stop undermining and distracting the National Assembly in playing its constitutionally assigned role in nation building. He launched an attack on the National Assembly on Friday, April 7 and continued on Monday April 10.

“The leadership of the National Assembly has already directed the Clerk to the National Assembly to publish details of the National Assembly budget from 2017 and so to continue to repeat the same call made three days earlier smacks of propaganda and cheap blackmail. “We are aware that there are serious security issues he should be grappling with in Southern Kaduna and other governmental issues facing him. He should not give the impression that he has no challenging work to do in Kaduna State.”

Accusing the governor for allegedly undermining the president, Namdas said: “These attacks are coming on the heels of his now famous letter to Mr. President, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, where he made strenuous effort to undermine his government, by openly lampooning him when he has unhindered access to His Excellency, Mr. President. As a senior citizen, he has a responsibility not to unnecessarily overheat the polity with tendentious and unfounded outbursts.”

According to him, “the call by the speaker was for el-Rufai to extend his advocacy on transparency and accountability to other arms and tiers of government in order to remove the lid of secrecy that has beclouded expenditures at the state level led by his colleagues, especially on their security votes and not the states’ security budget.”

The speaker, who picked holes in the documents published by the governor, said: “We note that what Malam el-rufai published was the security budget of Kaduna State and not his security vote expenditure as such.” He argued that: “The Kaduna State Governor chose to give headings of its budget on security related matters. Maybe he will give further details of actual security expenditures at the appropriate time.

He claimed that the state’s accounts have been audited. No grounds have been broken here.” And in the spirit of transparency, the Speaker has released his payslips for the months of October, 2016 to March 2017 to the public. “The response by the Kaduna State governor completely missed the point. Mr. Speaker’s call was for el-Rufai to extend the campaign for openness and transparency to other arms of government, including the governors’ expenditures on security votes and local government funds. He merely doubled down on his campaign on National Assembly budget leaving out the other aspects of Mr. Speaker’s request.”

The speaker also faulted the governor on his position on National Assembly, saying “Kaduna State governor claimed that “in 2016, the National Assembly budget for its 469 members was larger than the entire budget of several Nigerian states.” “This statement is patently misleading and a terrible display of ignorance and falsehood or a deliberate attempt to blackmail the parliament.

For the avoidance of doubt, the National Assembly budget includes the salaries, allowances, expenditure and running cost of 469 members. It includes the salaries, allowances of about 3,000 legislative aides; it includes the salaries, allowances, equipment and maintenance of about 5000 staff in the bureaucracy of the National Assembly.

“The National Assembly has agencies too. The National Assembly Service Commission has a staff strength of about 500. The National Institute for Legislative Studies is also a parastatal of the National Assembly that serves as a legislative think-tank and a highly rated academic institution, which serves not only the National Assembly, but also State Houses of Assembly and the international community.

“It is currently building its headquarters which is world class. It has to be funded. El-Rufai’s mischievous publication carefully ignores the fact that the arrange bureaucracy of National Assembly and its agencies and 469 members need travel and transport support. They require medical attention, offices, equipment and all the support available to others in the public service,” he added.

He maintained that: “It is most uncharitable to ignore the fact that the National Assembly is an arm of government, not a department in the Executive branch. The budget of so many agencies in the Executive is higher than that of National Assembly, an arm of government. Such agencies as NCC – N102 billion, CBN – N421 billion, NPA – N250 billion, NIMASA – N100 billion, FIRS – N146 billion, Customs – N81 billion and NNPC whose budget runs into trillions are some examples. Indeed, the National Assembly Budget is about 2% of the national budget.”