Why I shunned Police panel –Dogara

Speaker of the House of Representative, Yakubu Dogara has stated that the police cannot meddle in the affairs of the House.

According to him, he cannot be investigated or interrogated over alleged padding of the 2016 budget, because “most of the things we do in the National Assembly are privileged.”

He said this in response to why he shunned the invitation of the Special Investigative Panel (SIP) of the police which is looking into the allegations of budget padding leveled against him by the former chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibril.

Dogara spoke during an interactive session with Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, in Abuja, on the one-year review of the 8th House of Representatives Legislative Agenda.

The session was organised by the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) led by Dr Clement Nwankwo.

Giving reasons he turned down the invite from the SIP, Dogara argued that no one or agency has the powers to pry into activities of the House, saying “most of the things we do in the National Assembly are privileged.”

He noted that he enjoys statutory protection under the Legislative Houses Powers & Privileges Act, even as he took on critics who have been calling for a probe of the matter.

Read also: Dogara shuns IGP’s SIP as Reps say police,  EFCC lack power to probe them

Dogara referred them to the 1999 constitution (as amended) and the Legislative Houses Powers and Privileges Act, adding, that a legislator was empowered to make any law, including the Appropriation Act, without being called to question.

He said, “The Constitution talks about the estimates of revenue and expenditure to be prepared and laid before the National Assembly. The Constitution did not mention the word budget.

“The reason is very simple. Budget is a law. Going by very pedestrian understanding of law, which even a year one law student knows, the functions of the government are such that the legislature makes the law, the executive implements and the judiciary interprets the law.

“The budget being a law, therefore, means it is only the parliament that can make it. I challenge all of us in the media and civil society organisations to look at our law and state where it is written that the President can make a budget.”

He further argued that whatever changes that were made in the budget fell within the appropriation powers of the legislature, which could not be described as criminal.

He said, “What I am saying is further reinforced by Section 80(4) of the Constitution, which says that no money shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other fund of the federation except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly.

“I want this thing to sink so that we can understand it from here and perhaps it may change the ongoing discourse.

“You say the National Assembly doesn’t have the powers to tinker with the budget; that we should just pass it. But when it is prepared, we turn it into a bill. If it is a bill, how do other bills make progression in the parliament in order to become laws?” he asked.

 

 

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