Nigeria In One Minute
2019 polls under threat from National Assembly, presidency rift
The renewed face-off between President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly over who calls the shot on budget matters could jeopardise the conduct of next year’s general elections. Specifically, legislative approval of budget proposals for the conduct of next year’s election by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) is uncertain.
A member of the Senate Appropriation Committee and Chairman of its Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, Rafiu Ibrahim (APC, Kwara South), queried the president’s motive.
The executive cannot, at this time, ask that money for key capital projects be converted for elections, he said. “That is not planning. Since we held the last poll, the next election time had been fixed. Since we did the last election, we already knew when we must do the next election, as the Electoral Act stipulates. We already knew that a new government would be inaugurated on May 29, 2019.”
One of the three Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators from Bayelsa State, on condition of anonymity, said: “I don’t want to comment on it. Everybody knows that there would be general elections in 2019 and yet they failed to make provisions for the elections in the 2018 budget. Why did they not make provision for it then? I believe they are up to something. But we are watching very closely. For now, I will not want to talk about it.”
The Guardian, July 23, 2018
RipplesNigeria… without borders, without fears
Click here to join the Ripples Nigeria WhatsApp group for latest updates.
Join the conversation
Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism
Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.
As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.
If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.
Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.
INVESTIGATION: In Kwara, multimillion-naira milk processing plant is abandoned, converted to a chicken outlet
After the government spent millions of naira to establish a milk processing plant in Kwara State that would provided jobs...
SPECIAL REPORT: For Sokoto communities, promise of healthcare is akin to death sentence
In this story, ABDULRASHEED HAMMAD delves into the dire realities of Primary Health Care services in Sokoto State, shedding light...
ICYMI…SPECIAL REPORT: NNPCL hides behind PIA to frustrate disclosure, accountability
Nigeria’s major oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), in what appears to be a common practice of disregard...
INVESTIGATION: Multi-million naira Ekiti resort center remains uncompleted a decade after
The multimillion-naira project, expected to comprise recreational buildings, now consists of cassava farmland, a bush used for excretion, and a...
SPECIAL REPORT: Torturous experiences of students with disabilities in Oyo tertiary institutions
For students with disabilities in Oyo state-owned tertiary institutions, learning is a torturous and distressing experience, considering the building structures...