The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has said the approval of the sum of N27 billion for the renovation of the National Assembly by the President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly’s leadership headed by Ahmad Lawan, is reprehensible and totally uncalled for.
The group believes the approval is criminal and misplaced. According to them, it is a subtle leeway for Senate and the House of Representatives to continue to remain submissive to the lawless leadership of the executive arm of government.
HURIWA urged the civil community to call out the excesses of the government and demand an overhaul of the leadership, adding that the Nigerian masses must stand up and fight for democracy before it is hijacked by oppressors.
“There is no further need to look for evidence of collusion between the leadership of the National Assembly and the Executive arm of government to collapse the constitutionally guaranteed separation of powers going by the unfortunate fact that both the legislative and judicial arms of government are now headed by ‘O-Yes’ men of Mr. President and the sad reality is that unless the slumbering civil society wakes up and demand the restoration of constitutional democracy we can as well sing ‘NUNCT DIMITIS SERVUM TUUM” meaning it is finished all man to his tents. The Rights group said the organized labour has since been bought over and pocketed by the Executive.
“This N27 billion is nothing short of bribery to shut the mouths of the Legislative arm of government and already Nigerians have seen the practical evidence that the National Assembly has been bought over and pocketed by the Executive when the Senate President Ahmad Lawan told us that the Senate will approve all requests coming from President Muhammadu Buhari because he believes that the President means well for Nigeria and shortly after saying that the Senate has turned into a full-blown ”Banana republic ” just as every and all requests including several toxic requests sent to the National Assembly to collect loans ranging from $22.7 billion and a fresh $5 billion loan request not including the $3.6billion COVID-19 loan has been approved and collected from the World Bank and the National Assembly even approved that President Muhammadu Buhari should collect a loan from China whose terms of the contract was written in the Chinese language which no single legislator understands. So Democracy is on the verge of collapse unless the entire Masses stand up now and demand immediate restoration of democracy.”
It further added: “HURIWA condemns the Federal Government’s approval of a reviewed appropriation of the budget for the renovation of the National Assembly complex from N37 billion to N27.7bn. Also regrettably, in the proposed revised budget, while the National Assembly complex renovation budget was reduced to N27.7bn (a reduction of 25.1 percent), the Basic Health Care Provision Fund, which is meant to cater for all the primary healthcare centres across the 774 local government areas in the country, was significantly reduced by N44.4bn to N25.5bn, a decrease of more than 42.5 percent.
“This is a crime against humanity given that the National health infrastructures of Nigeria have all collapsed and the Federal Government had to go cap in hand to multilateral lending institutions to borrow hugely in the guise of combating COVID-19 pandemic which in the real sense was never used or intended to be used to improve the dilapidated buildings of our health facilities all over Nigeria and the scarcity of modern medical equipment and the motivation of the medical staff to man these health facilities.
“We must protest against this criminality of bribing the National Assembly with N27 billion and cutting down the budget for healthcare and for education.”