CONSTITUENCY PROJECTS ARE A NONSENSE THAT MUST BE ABOLISHED.

But for constituency projects many rural communities would never have known about the existence of the federal government let alone benefitting from budgets thanks to the Meeharism of the projects which ensures that every year projects such as solar powers, bore holes, hand pumps, school infrastructures, dispensaries skills acquisition centers, poverty alleviation etc.  are implemented, however poorly the implementation two of the major justifications for the assertion that so called constituency projects are a nonsense that must be abolished are contained in the quote from a recent article by Honourable Namda. After demonstrating the emptiness of the legislator’s claims for constituency projects, I will draw attention to his incorrect references to kenya’s constituency development fund and pork barrel politics in the USA.

        If every member of the 5^th and 7^th National Assembly a total of 469 in the senate and the House of Representatives implemented a couple of constituency project per year, more than 11,000 projects world have been implemented before the advent if the 8^th NASS in 2015. Even on the admission of Namdas that only 40 percent of funds appropriated for the projects were released for the purpose on average, there would be, in theory, about 4500 projects implemented nationwide. The bad news is that by 2010 when actual implementation of constituency projects between 2007 and 2009 was assessed in six states across the geopolitical zones the findings were uniformly negative completed but not functional projects incomplete and abandoned projects and phantom projects means that monies made available to the legislators concerned were corruptly appropriated as additional allowances. The ongoing budget fraud accusations in NASS further underscores the argument for the abolition of constituency projects.

THE BAD ECONOMIC SITUATION SETTING THE STAGE FOR CRIME

Indeed poverty in Nigeria, like in most developing nations of Africa, is widespread and seems to be on the increase. When poverty joins high level of economic and social aspirations, the stage is set for criminal activities particularly official corruption, ritual killings, robberies and dealing in illegal goods and services. People who are throated in attaining desired social and economic goals legally may seek to obtain them illegally. Psychotically, aggression is always legally a consequence of frustration while frustration leads to some form of aggression. The poor are led to violence owing to their relative depilation and needs. This scenario agrees significantly with the current security situation in Nigeria. Perhaps, the greatest challenge facing the economy is unemployment which has maintained rising tread over the years. The total labour force in Nigeria is made up of all personal aged 15-56 years excluding students, home keepers, retired persons or those who stay at home and work or are not interested. The unemployment are people who are willing and capable but are unable to find suitable paid employment. The classical school of thought that provided the earliest thinking on economic issues did not fail to give a central point of reflection on the undesirability of unemployment. The youths who are being churned out of the university yearly without any job are getting frustrated. Meanwhile, Buhari has reiterated that his Government is poised to break all economic barriers and set Nigeria free from poverty. According to him, although some Nigerian had become disoriented and impatient, the plan to diversify the economy is still very much on the carts. The president added that diversification of the economy has become much more than just a slogan as it has became a necessity. He said his government plans to use agriculture to save foreign exchange and pull many out of poverty and that his administration will continue to make substantial investment in human capital development. He said the country is facing the challenges of facing insecurity, creating jobs, addressing the country’s balance of payments and stimulating and sustaining national economic recovery, the injustice of hunger and the need for long term food security.

THE CASES AGAINST JIBRIN

Many members of the House, who seem to be on Dogara’s side, has the suspicion of external influence that played a prominent role during the election of the principal officers and even blackmail to discredit the House and its leadership. They want concrete proof of the allegation of budget mutilation against the House officials for instance, the chairman of the House committee on health services, Chike John Okafor, said that it was surprising to him how the former appropriation committee chairman got health constituency project with about N500 million for his constituency Bebeji/kiru federal constituency of kano state without the knowledge of his committee. Okafor claimed that Jibrin tried to lobby his committee to take something for his constituency project which the committee did not consent to, but expressed surprise that without the knowledge of the committee Jibiri inserted the health project for his constituency. The lawmaker, who represented Ehime Mbono/Ihitte Uboma/Obowo federal constituency of Imo state on the platform of all progressive congress, said that, during the budget defense, the minister of health had pleaded with his committee that, because there were no loose funds even to carter for vital projects like vaccines, members should not take much on having constituency project in the budget in another attempt to help the blames of the budget impase at the door steps of Jibiri, the chairman of trust committee on media and public affairs Abdulrazak Namdas, said a film village, with over N1 billion to be sited in Jibiris constituency and named after Buhari, was inserted by Jubrin in the budget without the knowledge of the lawmakers and president prior to the passage of the 2016 budget. The disapproval by Buhari of the film village project on a 12 hectare plot, situated at Jibrins shopping complex in Kofa village of Bebeji Local Government Area, was based on the realization that the project was not in tanderm with the presidents developmental agenda for the people of Kano state. The project has made a prominent Kano cleric, sheik Abdallah Usman Gadan Kanya, to threaten to mobilize adherents of Islam against the project which was considered as a veritable avenue to breed immoral acts and other anti Islamic practices. The cleric justified the opposition to the project when he said we heard that it is one lawmaker that is bringing this calamity to us from federal government anther mischief is that they have put the picture of the president and calling the place Muhammadu Buhari is not Allah, and he is not (The) prophet. Even if it is Buhari that did wrong we will confront him squarely. Even if it is Buhari that brings this we will fight it, it is wrong “Tell them, write it and propagate it through all the means. We don’t want it, we don’t need it. They should take it somewhere. We will continue to curse people behind this film village. You should campaign against it in Whatapp, Facebook, if they insist.

THE FUNCTIONS OF THE LEGISLATORS AND THE ISSUE OF PADDING

            As commentators continue to express divergent views on the appropriation process especially concerning which arm of government has the power to allocate resources to projects in the budget, there are questions yet to be answers. Some of the commentators argued that there is nothing like padding in the legislative parlance in the budgeting process, hence, nobody could be accused of committing any crime that is not known to law. They planted out that based on the constitutional provision and other relevant rules guiding the activities of the house, the legislature has the right to tinker with budget estimates presented by the executive arm. According to this school of thought, the legislature all over the world has three primary functions; to regulate and oversee the external affairs of the country as seen in the approval of ambassadors, make for the good of the country and approve expenditures, in Nigeria, the legislature draws its powers from section80.

1.                of 1999 constitution, as amended which states thus (1) all revenues or other moneys raised or received by the federation (not being revenues or other moneys payable under this constitution or any of the national assembly into any other public are consolidated revenue fund of a specific purpose) shall be paid into and form one consolidated revenue fund of the federation.

2.                No money shall be withdrawn from the considated revenue funds  of the federation except to meet expenditure that is charged upon the fund by this constitution or where the issue of chose money has been authorized by an appropriate act, supplementary appropriation act or an act passed in pursuance of  section 81 of this constitution.

3.                No money shall be withdrawn from any public fund of the federation, other than the consolidated revenue fund of the federation, unless the issues of those moneys has been authorized by an act of the national assembly. 81 (1) the president shall cause to be prepared and laid before each house of the national assembly at anytime in each financial year estimates of the revenues and expenditure of the federation of the next following financial year. It shall be noted that while working on the budget estimates, presented by the executive arm, the lawmakers reserve the power to alter such proposals as they deem fit. Even Jibrin did not say that what the house did was unconstitutional: he only said the insertions were “senseless”

BUDGET PADDING JIBRIRI’S ALLEGATION AND THE SEALING OF THE OFFICE OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATION

        The controversy surrounding the padding of the 2016 budget at the House of Representatives continued with the alleged sealing of the office of the house committee on appropriation by some people suspected to be operatives of the department of state services (DSS). The controversy blew open after the immediate past chairman of the House appropriation committee, Hon Abdulmumunu Jibirin, alleged that he rejected moves by principal officers of the House, led by speaker Yakubu Dagara too pad the 2016 budget to the tune of N40 billion, these members of the body of principal officers were not comfortable with my independent disposition and my refusal to cover up their unilateral decision to allocate to themselves 40 Billion Naira out of the 100Billion allocated to the entire national assembly. The four of them met and took that decision. In addition to billions of wasteful projects running over 20Billion they allocated to their constituencies. They must come out clean. My inability to admit into the budget almost 30billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker and the three other principal officers also became an issue “I wish I could but where will I get such money in a tight budget year like this? I have every documented evidence to this effect. After the submission of the first version of the budget which was returned by Mr. President, I briefed members in executive session and told them as agreed at our pre budget meeting with chairman and deputy chairman of standing committees; we simply adopted their reports with little amendments. “Nobody faulted my submission. Member insisted they must know how the 100 billion was allocated. I told them the truth. Since after that meeting, Mr. speaker with the support of the three other principal officers effectively blocked me from briefing members, insured I was not at the last executive session and refused to investigate issues I raised that I believes must be addressed if we intent to build a better budget system for the house. I gave Mr. speaker statistics of 2000 nee projects introduced into the budget by less than 10 committee chairman without the knowledge of their committee members he did nothing about it because he was part of the mess yet he is talking about improving the budget system, I did nothing wrong. “I worked within the rules of the house and instructions of Mr. Speaker during the budget period. Mr. President graciously granted myself and Sen. Cige audience. Dagara took it extremely personal that we, saw the president without his knowledge and went on to scuttled all our efforts to help the president during the budget process because he want to be seen by the president as the only good man” but Dogara, in his reply to Jibriri’s allegation. Told the public to ignore what he described as an afterthought.