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From: Kemi Yesufu, Abuja
A mild drama played out during plenary in the House of Representatives, on Thursday, as lawmakers promptly reacted to Speaker Yakubu Dogara’s announcement of a letter from President Muhammadu Buhari on the 2018 budget, with loud shouts of “No, No”.
The lawmakers’ reaction to Dogara’s announcement of the intention of the president to address a joint session of the National Assembly alongside the presentation of 2018 budget estimate, next Tuesday, was swift and spontaneous.
For close to a minute, lawmakers across party lines shouted, ‘No’ and it took the intervention of the Speaker to end the shouting.
Speaker Dogara stressed in his intervention, that members would not be able to stop the president from addressing the joint session of the House and the Senate.
‘I wish we have the constitutional right to say no. But unfortunately, we don’t have it…This House is the custodian of the constitution. The President has the right…” , Dogara said.
The reaction from the lawmakers is coming a week after the Senate President Bukola Saraki, Speaker Dogara and other principal officers of the National Assembly, were turned back at the gate of the Presidential villa.
Members of the National Assembly were in Aso Rock Villa for a meeting with President Buhari on the 2018 draft budget which the Federal Executive Council (FEC) recently approved.
Though the security personnel passed the Senate President and the Speaker, they demanded that other lawmakers be screened.
Their request was rejected by Saraki, Dogara and other members of the delegation and this led to the lawmakers leaving the Villa in anger.
But after an apology from President Buhari, the lawmakers returned to the Presidential Villa for the dinner with the president.
