By Oluwadara Akingbohungbe
The lawmaker representing Doguwa/Tundun Wada Federal Constituency in Kano, Alhassan Doguwa, has denied allegations that President Bola Tinubu presented the 2023 budget to lawmakers without sufficient details.
Yusuf Galambi, a member of the opposition New Nigerian People’s Party, told BBC Hausa on Friday that Tinubu only provided a blank document during Wednesday’s budget presentation to the National Assembly.
Galambi, a lawmaker representing Gwaram Federal Constituency in Jigawa, said: “We checked the document he presented and found it empty. In the history of the National Assembly, such an incident has never happened until this year and it is not something this country’s Constitution stipulates.”
But speaking to journalists on Friday, Doguwa insisted that lawmakers had received Tinubu’s entire budget proposal before his address to the joint session.
“What people don’t know is that President Tinubu sent a flash copy of the entire budget before presenting it to the joint houses,” Doguwa revealed. He called suggestions that lawmakers only received blank 2023 budget documents “baseless”.
Doguwa clarified that as usual, Tinubu provided a hard copy of his speech as well as flash drive containing electronic copies of the full Appropriation Bill and estimates.
The lawmaker called for an end to the deliberate distortion of facts related to the implementation of the president’s budget presentation.
“Stop distorting the truth, we have not received the blank box for President Tinubu’s 2024 budget,” he said.
