From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari formally received details of the 2016 Appropriation Bill from the National Assembly, yesterday. ‎

President’s Senior Special Assistant on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang and the Senior Special Assistant on National Assembly Matters (House of Representatives), Samaila Kawu, handed over the 1,800-page document to ‎the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, at about 12.05pm.

The presentation took place inside the Office of the Chief of Staff in the presence of ‎the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma.‎

Kyari signed and collected on behalf of the President.

Kyari shortly after the submission, led Enang and Kawu to the President’s Office where they met briefly.

The three of them emerged from the meeting a few minutes after with Enang still clutching the document.

Enang told State House correspondents when cornered that with the formal submission, the constitutional procedure would now follow.

“The budget details has been transmitted to His Excellency, Mr. President today, the constitutional process begins thereafter. We have transmitted it to the Office of the President and the constitutional process of timing starts,” he said.

The 2016 budget which was submitted by the President on the December 22, 2015 was finally approved by the National Assembly on March 23. However, only highlights were transmitted to the President.

The Presidency had said though Buhari was eager to sign the budget, he would not do so without the details, vowing to  critically review the document before assenting to it.

“Some bureaucrats removed what we put in the proposal and replaced it with what they wanted,” Buhari had said  at a meeting with the United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, in Washington DC.

President Buhari said in view of the controversial alteration and padding of the budget proposals, he needed to review the appropriation bill to be certain that its contents tallied with the authentic budget proposal presented to the National Assembly.

According to him, “I have to look at the bill that has been passed by the National Assembly, ministry by ministry, to be sure that what has been brought back for me to sign is in line with our original submission.”

Meanwhile, former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said contrary to report, he never signed budgets without details through out his eight-year tenure.

Obasanjo who was in the Presidential Villa to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari, refused to comment on corruption war or on the travails of Senate President, Bukola Saraki.

Wearing an agbada made of adire, he arrived the Presidential Villa arrived at about 12:15pm, spent like about an hour ‎with the President in a closed door meeting.