Godswill Akpabio, the president of the Senate, and Tajudeen Abbas, the speaker of the House of Representatives, have been urged by the Socio-economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) to abandon plans to spend N40 billion on 465 bulletproof cars for members and top officials and N70 billion as “palliatives” for new members.
SERAP urged them to repeal the 2022 Supplementary Appropriations Act, cut the National Assembly’s budget by N110 billion, consider the nation’s current economic conditions, and address how the removal of fuel subsidies would affect more than 137 million low-income Nigerians.
The group pleaded with them to ask President Bola Tinubu to present a new supplementary appropriation bill and repurpose the N110 billion to deal with the issue of Nigeria’s more than 20 million out-of-school children.
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In a letter signed at the weekend by Deputy Director of SERAP, Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation said travesty and apparent conflict of interest and self-dealing by members of the National Assembly must stop.
SERAP said: “It is a fundamental breach of their fiduciary duties for members of the National Assembly to arbitrarily increase their own budget and use it as a tool to satisfy the lifestyle of lawmakers.
“It is a grave violation of the public trust and constitutional oath of office for members of the National Assembly to unjustifiably increase their own budget at a time when over 137 million poor Nigerians are living in extreme poverty, exacerbated by removal of fuel subsidy.”
It added: “Rather than exercising their constitutional and oversight functions to pursue public interest by considering bills to improve conditions of the over 137 million poor Nigerians who are facing impact of the removal of fuel subsidy, the lawmakers seem to be looking after themselves.
“The proposed spending of N110 billion by members of the National Assembly is apparently on top of the N281 billion already provided for the lawmakers in the 2023 National Assembly budget. The proposed spending is also different from the N30.17 billion budgeted for ‘inauguration expenses’ for new members.”
