Ali Ndume, Senator representing Borno South, has said that the excessive collaboration between the 9th Assembly and the former President Muhammadu Buhari administration constituted a problem for Nigeria.
Ndume, during an interview with the BBC Hausa acknowledged that while there were areas that they performed well, there were a number of Buhari’s government policies that should have been met with opposition.
According to him, failure to say no to some of the government’s demands which appeared to be for personal gains, has not helped Nigeria.
“There has never been an Assembly that has given the executive branch as much cooperation as the 9th Assembly.
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“Although, we should cooperate, we have gone too far, and it has become a problem for the country especially in the area of debts that the government has received,” said Ndume.
He criticized the Assembly for not investigating, following up and assessing the use of the loans received by the Buhari government, and their impact on the people of the country.
“We did not conduct a proper investigation, and we did not study the benefits of collecting the loans. In the same way, we did not determine the benefit of the debts received in the past, how to pay the money taken, and the things that will follow,” he added.
Regarding the fight against corruption, Ndume said that it was one of the promises that brought Buhari’s government to power but the administration did not directly take any strong action to show that it was really serious.
“What we came up with in the government is that we will fight corruption directly, but no law has been made to show this,” Ndume said.
According to him, the lawmakers were responsible for this failure in the 9th Assembly.
He pointed out that they have not done their duty to follow the actions of the executive.
“As I said, there was cooperation with the government, but it went too far”.