How National Assembly May Shut Down Buhari’s Government…..

Buhari…in quandary?

The National Assembly may be on its way to shutting down the government of President Muhammadu Buhari except it  responds to an urgent need to reconvene and consider a waiting foreign loan request and supplementary budget made by the administration.

Failure to do this, the government says could lead to a complete shutdown of the government.

The Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo met behind closed-doors with the Senate Majority Leader and the Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Ita Enang at the Presidential Villa Abuja.

Briefing State House correspondents after the meeting, the Presidential liaison officer in the senate, Senator Enang, appealed to the presiding officers of the national assembly to reconvene and consider the pending requests of the President, stressing that anything short of that could lead to the shut down of government.

Enang said, “We are still appealing to the National Assembly to reconvene. You remember that we passed the budget with understanding that the greater amount of it would be gotten by foreign loans.

“Although this was approved that there would be loans, the amount to be gotten was not approved. The Fiscal Responsibility Act requires that the President should specifically state the amount the government want to get from foreign loans and present it before the National Assembly.

“That letter has been presented to the National Assembly and the National Assembly has to pass that amount before the money could be obtained from foreign financing institutions.

“This is what we are asking and if it didn’t happen in the next few months, we may have a complete government shutdown. “What we are receiving from the federation accounts as the federal government share of the capital component is not enough to sustain even the 15 or 20 percent of the budget.

“So there may be a complete government shutdown and I know that Nigerians are not going to like it. That is why we are still appealing. Conflicting number of APC, PDP senators

“Now the leader of the Senate has said that they are 53, but I want to assure him that the APC have harvested more people from the PDP and other political parties.

The head of the PDP in the Senate is formally joining the APC family and that will be in a big ceremony on Wednesday the 8th of August in Akwa Ibom state.

“So, the head of the PDP who holds all the documents of the PDP, His Excellency, Distinguished Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio (CON) is coming over with a great team and other minorities will join the APC family and we are good and strong.”

We must reconvene immediately Also briefing journalists, the Senate Majority Leader, Lawan (APC, Yobe) urged the presiding officers of the two chambers of the national assembly to reconvene immediately to pass the supplementay budget for the 2019 general elections and the virement request by the President.

He said that if the supplementary budget for the election was not passed, it could stall preparations for the election as well as the government.

He said, “I have come to visit the acting president, you know this is our administration. I have come to brief him on the situation in the Senate and the discussion also considered the need for national assembly to convene immediately for us to pass the virement and the supplementary budget request by Mr. President.

“You know that the budget for 2018 the capital aspect will be largely funded by foreign facilities, loans. Now we need to approve that. We also need to approve other important and essential requests especially that of INEC and other security agencies for our security to be improved.

“It is therefore very essential that we reconvene immediately to look into those issues because our government is almost stalled and I believe that if we are able to pass the supplementary budget and virement request from Mr. President, this will enable our administration to provide the various infrastructure that we have planned to provide for Nigerians and also all the other aspects of national development.

“To do otherwise will lead to sabotage this administration, will lead to sabotage democracy itself because if we cannot provide the essentials for Nigerians,

if we cannot provide funds for INEC to plan for the 2019 elections, what do we call ourselves? “Certainly, in the case of INEC for example, INEC could pick some items on the shelves but there are so many important and essential items that INEC will have to place order that could take about two to three months.

“So it is very imperative that we do the needful, we should convene the national assembly immediately and as legislators, as representatives of Nigerians, we will do what is best in the national interest.”

Asked what was the response of the acting President, he said, “Well, I briefed the acting President on the situation in the Senate there are conflicting information coming out from the Senate caucuses. “