The National Assembly just passed a budget of N125 billion and they did not disclose the details of the budget to the general public. Here is what Nigerians think about the matter.
Chukwudi Ike-Okoye, 28, Estate Surveyor, Lagos
This goes a long way to tell of how far we still are from practising real and true democracy where everyone should be able to seek information on any arm of government, MDAs and what have you, and be provided with such.
We are in an era where freedom of information is important. But it is nonexistent in our own society. When the National Assembly of any nation decides to hide its budgeting process from the public, it goes a long way to tell one that what they practice is far from democracy. Democracy is freedom and freedom is democracy. They go hand in hand.
It is a thing most shameful that this same National Assembly is championing the Social Media Bill, to cripple the only freedom to which Nigerians air their views and opinions and put them on their heels. Yet, the same arm of government has limited the details of their budget from the public. Where is the room for accountability, transparency and due process?
In as much as they are there to represent us, we are also here to call them to order and put them to check. They owe us the responsibility to provide us with information on how they tend to spend the N125billion. Nigerians deserve to know. And it is high time we start championing the campaign for an open National Assembly.
Ismail Auwal, 28, Program Manager African Center for Transparency and Anti-corruption Advocacy, Kano
It is our right and duty as citizens to demand answers if a service is not delivered in a timely and efficient manner, but how can we hold the public officials account if they refused to be transparent in their dealings.
It is a slap, on the face of a government that took the fight against corruption as one of its core mandates to have an assembly that is refusing to tell Nigerians how it would be spending the billions of Naira it allocated to itself. we should note that lack of transparency tends to promote corruption or misuse of power.
What is the 9th assembly afraid of? or has the honourable members forgotten that transparency and accountability are considered to be the main pillars of good governance?
Faydah Yahya, Research & Content Creation, Abuja
This humungous amount of budget allocated to the National Assembly is my major concern as it’s certain to go into the pockets of these individual Distinguished/Honourable, rather than channelling them into the maintenance of already built health facilities among the other infrastructural developmental projects in their various states. In other words, if allocation goes into proper staffing of hospital personnel in addition to funding of equipment and facilities; a lot of Nigerians will reduce their international tourism for health care. Likewise if they utiles these funds for education and provision of basic infrastructure in the country. This, in the long run, will reduce costs as the budget name implies; “The Budget of Sustaining Growth and Job Creation”
Aminat Salami, 25, Entrepreneur, Lagos
2020 budget for NASS at 125 billion is higher than the combined budget of education 48billion, health 46billion and social investment 30billion. The budget is extravagant in an economy adjudged to have over 100 million poor people with gross infrastructure deficit. They don’t want to disclose it because they don’t want members of the public to know how much money is in circulation when almost half of the country is struggling in abject poverty.
Jaafar Shehu, 30, Legal practitioner, Katsina
It is expected of the National Assembly to provide a breakdown of the N125billion budget to the public, on the contrary, they kept the details of their budget secret, besides the lawmakers’ nobody is in the picture of the details of how they intend to spend the money.
Although this is not the first time the National Assembly has kept the details of their budget secret, Nigerians are full of expectation on the 9th Assembly, owning to the fact that they promised Nigerians transparency and accountability. As such the secrecy violates its commitment to Nigerians. The action of the National Assembly hiding the details of N125b budget from public opens a wide room for corrupt tendencies and extravagant spending by the National Assembly. It is unfortunate that the National Assembly is going against its commitments to Nigerians.
Ejemegwa Isaac Chukwuebuka, 27, Teacher, Anambra
For a National Assembly that at its onset promised Nigerians that they would be transparent in all of their dealings which they have done till this moment to now refuse to tell Nigerians the details of their budget only means that they are not what they have painted themselves to be.
In the past weeks that have gone by we saw this same National Assembly drilling ministries, government agencies and departments on contents and details of their own budget, one after another, why are they now hiding theirs from Nigerians and the rest of the world. By doing this they are only sending the wrong message to people out there that they have hidden agendas and are not prepared to be transparent like they said they will be. And if they continue in this path and pass this law then it only goes to show that we are in for a rough ride as a country for the next three half years remaining for them in office.
I can clearly recollect this same thing came up with the last National Assembly and Nigerians didn’t take it easy with them from the streets to newspapers and even social media, and now we are seeing it happen for a second time which is why I believe the National Assembly are championing the Hate Speech Bill and Anti-Social Media Bill so that Nigerians won’t be able to take them up on an issue such as this like it was with the last Assembly.
President Buhari had earlier announced the slash of estacodes for government officials who go on assignment abroad, as well as a reduction in the size of delegations travelling outside the country on behalf of Federal government. This is a step in the right direction. The government should, indeed, introduce strict austerity measures to reduce public expenditure on things that won’t grow the economy or bring about development, and this won’t be possible if the National Assembly doesn’t tell us how they plan to spend their 125 billion. If we as a Nation cannot increase our revenue base, we should, at least, reduce our cost of operations. That is one of the ways to survive in this bad economy we have found ourselves in.
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