A member of the House of Representatives and one of the spokespersons of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council, Nnena Ukeje, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari came to the National Assembly with intention to campaign for his re-election instead of presenting the national budget to the joint session of the National Assembly.
According to her, instead of addressing the National Assembly as the President of the country, President Buhari’s mannerisms rather appeared as though he was merely speaking as the flagbearer for the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The lawmaker, who spoke yesterday, Monday on Channels Television’s Politics Today, said that with an already heated polity, the Presidency ought to have taken a cue from former President Goodluck Jonathan, who during his time, delegated the assignment of presenting the budget to a less contentious character.
“When Mr. President walked into the hallowed chambers (I’ve watched Mr. President campaign a lot of the time) and I find that as he balls his fist, there’s this frenzied response from his supporters.
“As Mr. President walked into the House of Representatives on that day to present the policy statement of the country for the next year, Mr. President clenched his fist and raised his hand. From that moment, in the eyes of some of my colleagues, he transcended from the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the APC flagbearer and of course, the situation got very heated.
“In a country that is as divided as Nigeria, the polity is so heated up, we saw the same things happen in 2015 when President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was supposed to come and present his budget.
“You will recall that at that time, we had a very active opposition, almost militant opposition and they had said they were not going to allow President Goodluck Jonathan, come into the National Assembly to deliver the budget.
“What we did in the PDP at the time was engage with the president and say that it was a potentially violent environment and the APC opposition had said they would do everything to stop him from presenting the budget.
“Now, what we did was go back and look into the constitution and the fact that even though it had become customary for Mr President to deliver the budget, the President was still allowed to delegate his duties.
“Under advisement, the president decided at the time to look for a less contentious character and he decided to ask the Minister of Economy at the time, Okonjo Iweala to come before the National Assembly and deliver the budget.”
