Following the presentation of 8.612trn 2018 budget by President Muhammadu Buhari, members of the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party in the National Assembly have expressed their unhappiness over the non-implementation of the previous budgets by the current administration.
The Lawmakers who had together with some aggrieved member of the ruling All Progressives Congress, planned to disgrace the President were pacified by the Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara.
One of them, Toby Okechukwu, said the lawmakers were not happy with the pace of implementation of the 2017 budget.
He added that it was not just the PDP lawmakers who planned the protest, but also members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
“In 2016 he brought N6 trillion, N7 trillion in 2017 and now he is bringing N8 trillion, we are not interested in the trillion, we are not interested in the trillions but rather what you can implement.
“If you don’t have N8trn, why don’t you budget for what you have? It is just mere deception”, he added.
A lawmaker from Lagos State, Oghene Egoh, also said the lawmakers were aggrieved because of the slow pace of implementation of the 2017 budget.
“2017 was not well implemented, now you bring 2018. We thought about protesting against the president but the speaker appealed to us that in the interest of the country,” he said.
“That shows you PDP, we are people who are willing to work for the betterment of the country,” he said.
“It was purely on principle that we fight for implementation. The generality of the people suffer it, that was the reason. But we thank God we dropped the idea and today the budget has been laid.”
