There was outrage among Nigerians as NASS spent a whooping sum of N3.13t for the past 25 years, still planning to spend N514bn in 2024, having passed over 816 Bills for the past 25 years.
Akpabio
In passing the budget, the lawmakers raised the budget from N27.5 trillion to N28.78 trillion. They also jerked up the N197.93bn originally proposed by the Executive for the National Assembly N344.85 billion.
However, if other planned expenditures tied to the National Assembly, such as N100bn for zonal intervention projects and votes for the completion of ongoing projects were added, the legislature would be spending at least N514bn from the N28.78 trillion budget this year, according to Statisense.
Abbas
With this, it means that by the end of 2024, Nigeria would have spent the sum of N3.132 trillion on the National Assembly, which has 109 senators and 360 House of Representatives members, going by budgetary allocations since 1999.
The N3.132 trillion trillion is 5.52 percent of the N176.470 trillion appropriated by the Federal Government since Nigeria returned to civil rule in 1999, Vanguard’s check indicates.
SARAKI
Within the period, the National Assembly passed 816 bills that were signed into law by various presidents. Although the legislature, which is the symbol of democracy, performs other functions including oversight on the other arms of government, especially the executive arm, and passes motions and resolutions, lawmaking or passage of bills is, arguably, the primary duty of the lawmakers.
lawan
Thus, if the N3.132 trillion allocated to the National Assembly since 1999 is accounted for by the number of bills that became laws, it means a bill costs N3.838 billion.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, the LP said: “As we bid the year 2023 farewell and usher in 2024, we in the Labour Party, pray that God intervenes and brings succor to us all as Nigerians have been exposed to uphold hardships because of maladministration and insensitive government in place.
“While we pray, we also enjoin Nigerians to take a closer look at budgetary provisions and sectoral allocations in the 2024 budget.
“Without a doubt, the President Bola Tinubu-led All Progressives Congress administration has displayed a disdain for the security and welfare of Nigerians.
“Looking at the 2024 budget, we cannot fail to notice the undue attention given to the comfort of those in power to the detriment of the majority of Nigerians.
OTHER CONCERNED NIGERIANS KICK
The Coalition of United Political Parties, CUPP, said it was “appalled by the figures making the rounds on the amount inserted and appropriated by the National Assembly for itself in the 2024 Appropriation Bill.”
In a statement by its National Secretary, Chief Peter Ameh, the CUPP urged President Tinubu to withhold his assent until those sums and others inserted into it are expunged, saying, it “knows that when Nigerians elected the Members of the National Assembly, they were not elected to go and start feeding fat on our collective patrimony but to make laws that would enhance and improve the lives of long-suffering Nigerians who have been asphyxiated by the onerous policies of the immediate past administration of President Buhari, but we now know that we were flogged with horse whips, but we are now being punished with scorpions and snakes.
“For NASS to bold-facedly jerk up and insert all those multi-billion naira projects which were never a part of their brief, and the appropriation bill originally forwarded by President Tinubu, CUPP views this as insensitivity on the part of National Assembly and rubbing of salt and iodine to an already gangrenous wounds of Nigerians who are gasping for survival.