NIGERIA: Where Budgets Get Missing And President Misses FEC Meetings, Works From Home

President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday was absent from the meeting of the Federal Executive Council, FEC at the Presidential Villa, Abuja

The Council Chamber, venue of the meeting was also scanty with about 20 out of 36 Ministers equally absent at the meeting which was chaired by Vice president Yemi Osinbajo.

The already seated Osinbajo and the Ministers according to Vanguard  were expectant of the President, appearing to preside over the meeting but got disappointed as Buhari failed to show up. But at exactly 11 am, the time for the meeting, Osinbajo got whispers from the State Chief of Protocol, SCOP and thereafter called for the National Anthem and opening prayers, signaling the commencement of the meeting.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Information, Culture and Orientation howver came to the rescue saying President Buhari made his absence known while he will be working “from home today”
The Information Minister Lai Mohammed said, “The President sent a word that he wanted to rest today and asked the Vice President to preside over today’s meeting.

“The President also asked that all his files be taken home to him and will be working from home today”.
This has generated a lot of reactions from Nigerians who are of the opinion that the president is incapacitated to work and that his “working from home” is a smokescreen by the Executive to hide the health status of the president from Nigerians.

As if that was not enough, The Chairman of the Senate committee on appropriations Danjuma Goje whose residence was raided by the police last week, has said files containing work on the 2017 budget proposal were carted away during the raid.

Mr. Goje, a former Gombe State governor, made the disclosure before the Senate on Wednesday when the matter came under Order 43 of the Senate Rules and he was asked to report the raid on his residence, located at Asokoro, Abuja.

Mr. Goje’s committee, alongside a similar one at the House of Representatives, has oversight responsibility over the country’s budget. He told the Senate that the police carted away laptops and 18 documents that contained the work of his committee on the 2017 budget.

The report on the budget proposal was scheduled to be laid this week. He added that the operatives broke into rooms whose keys they could not get and also carted away a sum of N18 million.
The current 2016 budget, by the provision of the 2016 Appropriations Act, expires on May 5.

But with this development,with the claim of losing files, the 2017 budget may not be ready for legislative passage before the expiration of the current budget. This however will not be the first time budget will be missing in Nigeria, the 2016 budget was said to have been stolen from the National Assembly during the heat of budget padding scandal.