Tension rose at the House of Representatives on Thursday over the request by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to extend the implementation period for the capital component of the N21.83 trillion 2023 budget and the N2.17 trillion 2023 supplementary budgets to December 2024.
The plenary session descended into a farce after the executive letter was read by Speaker Abbas Tajudeen seeking the extension was introduced.
However, when the House Leader, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, moved for the second reading of the bills, the House Minority Leader, Rep. Kingsley Chinda, raised concerns over the request for an extension of the two budgets.
Chinda, while opposing the request, said it would be morally wrong for the country to run three to four budgets concurrently.
He stated that the executive is still requesting an extension of the 2023 main budget and supplementary budget, along with the implementation of the 2024 budget.
He suggested moving important projects from the supplemental budget to the main budget instead of extending them.
A former leader of the House, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, in his contribution, also supported the position of Minority Leader, saying it would be morally wrong to have three budgets running at the same time.
Speaker Abbas Tajudeen, while intervening, appealed to members to support the extension of the budget implementation, saying most of the items on the supplementary budget were security-related issues.
Despite his pleas, the majority of the lawmakers appeared uncomfortable with the request for an extension of the budgets as they kept on shouting “No!”No!”
Following the development, the Speaker requested that the House convene an executive session for members to iron out issues before resuming consideration of the bills.
The house is currently in an executive session, according to Persecondnews.
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