Femi Adesina, the Senior Special Assistant to Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari on Media, in a recent interview on Radio Continental, spoke about the conditions surrounding the passage of Nigeria’s 2016 budget.
“The exact situation is that the legislature and the executive are still consulting,” he stated.
“There has to be a lot of consultation on this because naturally, a President should not sign a budget that will become unimplementable. It is even an impeachable offence because they will say later that he didn’t implement it. And a President should not sign a budget that is not in favour of the people. Those budget projections were sent to the National Assembly, and what came back didn’t in any way look like what was sent,”
He also said the 30 day grace for Buhari to assent the budget has not expired.
“I wouldn’t think it would be 30 days by Tuesday because that budget was sent about two weeks ago. And the constitution gives the executive a 30 days window. What I will just say is that it is in nobody’s interest to have a constitutional crisis because the party that is governing in the centre also has the majority in the two chambers of the National Assembly. That party has to do the right thing. They need to call themselves, sit down and tell themselves; we are the party in government, and we must do the right things for the people.